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From the Library of 
Professor Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield 
Begueathed by him to 
the Library of 


Princeton Theological Seminary 


BT -111.:P34 1902 

Palmer, B. M. 1818-1902. | 

The threefold fellowship ani 
the threefold assurance 


The Threefold F ellowship 


AND 


The Threefold Assurance: 


An Essay in Two Parts. 


Ws BY 
B. M. PALMER’ DoD. Tit. p.. 


Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, La, 


RICHMOND, VA.: 
THE PRESBYTERIAN COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION. 


CoPpyRIGHT, 1902, 


BY 


JAMES K.-HAZEN, Secretary of Publication. 


PRINTED BY 
WuiTTEtT & SHEPPERSON, 


RICHMOND, VA. 


CONTENTS. 


PARTE 


THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


CHAPTER I. 
THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH, 


CHAPTER IL. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD IN THE PERSON OF THE 
FATHER, . 


CHAPTER III. 


FELLOWSHIP WitH GoD IN THE PERSON OF THE 
Son, 


CHAPTER IV. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH GoD IN THE PERSON OF THE 
Horny GHostT, . 


dedi Wadd Witt 


THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 
CHAPTER I. 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING, 


CHAPTER II. 
THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH, 


CHAPTER III. 
Tre ASSURANCE OF Hops, 


PAGE. 


20 


46 


69 


i) 


118 


134 


PARES, 


The Threefold Fellowship. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/threefoldfellowsOOpalm 


The Threefold Fellowship. 


CHAPTER I.—InTRODUCTION. 
THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH. 


HE Scriptures plainly teach that there is only one 
living and true God, and yet that he is plural in 

the mode of his being. The testimony as to the first is 
exceedingly full in the Old Testament. Two citations 
will suffice to show this; in Deut. iv. 39 we read, “Know 
therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that 
the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth 
beneath: there is none else;” Isaiah xliv. 6, “Thus 
saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the 
Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and 
besides me there is no God.”’. These emphatic utterances 
were a constant protest against the polytheistic idolatry 
which, taking form soon after the flood as the second 
apostasy from God, was through the dispersion of the 
nations scattered over the whole earth. In connection 
with this, however, it is not a little remarkable that the 
first name given in the Old Testament to the Divine 
Being should be plural in its form; and that this plural 
name should be the third word in the first verse of the 
- Book of Genesis. It is also noteworthy that this plural 


8 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


designation should occur in reciting the first active work 
of the Deity of which we have any knowledge, to the 
significance of which reference will be made hereafter. 
Nor should it escape our attention that in Num. vi. 23. 
to 26 the priestly benediction to be pronounced upon 
Israel should correspond with the apostolic benediction 
of the New Testament, not only in its threefold form, 
but in the very substance and matter of the blessing 
contained in each. 

If these references to the plural name of God and 
the plural form of his benediction upon Israel should 
appear too slender a prop to support so weighty a truth 
as the trinal subsistence of the Godhead, it may be 
replied that the testimony is in precise accord with the 
progressive character of the Old Testament revelation 
throughout. The first hint of God’s mercy to fallen man 
is the obscure reference to the “seed of the woman,” 
lodged precisely in the bosom of the curse denounced 
against the serpent; and the first intimation of the 
method of grace was afforded in the bloody sacrifice 
of Abel in contrast with the Eucharistic offering of 
Cain. Yet these earliest sparks of divine revelation con- 
tinued to glow through the whole antediluvian period, 
to wax brighter and brighter under the patriarchal dis- 
pensation, kindling into a flame through all the symbols 
of the Hebrew ritual, and flashing into moving beams of 
light through the later prophets — all converging at 
length in the full glory of the New Testament economy. 
It was thus in perfect harmony with this progressive 


THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH. : 9 


unfolding of God’s purpose and method of grace that 
he should withhold the mystery of his threefold sub- 
sistence until the time should arrive for the display of 
his threefold office-work in the salvation of men. It is 
God’s way to reveal himself through his works; and it 
is in the exposition of these that the words are spoken 
which explain his ways to the children of men. 

In passing from the Old Testament to the New, we 
encounter only the embarrassment of riches. The record 
in every line throbs with the doctrine of God in Christ; 
bringing conjointly into view a threefold differentiation 
in the unity of the Godhead. Hence in the citations 
that follow, the two points of unity and diversity will 
not need to be separated. In Mark xii. 29 our Lord 
himself echoes the testimony of the old economy, “Hear, 
O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: to which the 
Hebrew scribe responds, “Master, thou hast said the 
truth; for there is one God, and there is none other 
but he.” Yet in John x. 30 our Lord as distinctly says, 
“T and my Father are one,” which the Jews construed 
as blasphemy; “because that thou, being a man, makest 
thyself God.” This inference our Lord, so far from 
disclaiming, immediately confirmed by declaring him- 
self “the Son of God” (vs. 36). In John xvii. 3 the 
same lips announce the same truth: “This is life 
eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, 
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” In like man- 
ner the apostle, in rebuke of idolatry, testifies that 
-“there is none other God but one; for though there 


10 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


be those that are called gods, whether in heaven or in 
earth, to us there is but one God, the Father of whom 
are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him? | 
(1 Cor. viii. 4-6.) Again, in Eph. iv. 6, he writes: “One 
God and Father of all, who is above all and through 
all, and in you all.” In the second chapter of the same 
Epistle (vs. 18) he presents the three Persons of the 
Godhead in their official distinction, “For through him 
(Christ Jesus) we both have access by one Spirit unto 
the Father.” In immediate connection may well be 
presented other testimonies affirming the Trinity in the 
Godhead. In the memorable discourse of our Lord, 
wherein he comforted his disciples in view of his depar- 
ture from earth, are these words: “The Comforter, 
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in 
my name, he shall teach you all things,” ete. (John 
xiv. 26.) So, in John xv. 26, we read the words: “When 
the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from 
the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth 
from the Father, he shall testify of me.” And again, 
in John xvi. 7: “If I go not away the Comforter will 
not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him 
unto you.” In these three utterances of our Lord we 
are not only presented with the distinction of Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost, but also with the interaction 
between the Three in the economy of the Godhead. 
Thus the Father is said to send the Spirit in the name 
of the Son: also, that the Son will send the Spirit from 


THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH. Tt 


the Father. In the baptismal formula, delivered by our 
Lord himself at the moment of his ascension into 
heaven, and in connection with the great commission 
to preach the gospel in all the world, he directs that 
baptism shall be administered “in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Matt. 
xxvill. 19.) In the solemn apostolic benediction answer- 
ing to that of the Aaronic priesthood of the Old Testa- 
ment, the threefold blessing upon the church is thus 
announced: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, 
be with you all. Amen.” (2 Cor. xiii. 14.) 

These testimonies are but a tithe of what might 
easily be adduced. In the recorded discourses of our 
Lord he constantly affirms, in a single breath, his dis- 
tinction from the Father, and also his intimate correla- 
tion with him in the fellowship of the Godhead. For 
example, he saith to his disciples in John xiv. 7-10: 
“Tf ye had known me, ye should have known my Father 
also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen 
him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, 
and it sufficéth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been 
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, 
Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father ; 
and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father. Be 
lievest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father 
in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not 
of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth 


‘the works.” And again, in verse 23: “If a man love 


12 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love 
him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode 
with him.” 

The sacred Scriptures thus reveal the one God, 
beside whom there is no other, and yet under the three- 
fold distinction of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. These 
are severally distinguished each from the other by the 
pronouns I, thou and he, as well as under the three 
names just recited. We find also distinct offices assigned 
to each, which are of such a nature that they cannot 
be consolidated upon a single party. The Father sends, 
and the Son is sent; but the sender and the sent cannot 
be at one and the same moment the same identical unit. 
Again, the Father judicially inflicts upon the Son the 
penalty of the law; but the judge and the criminal pun- 
ished cannot be identically the same. Still further, the 
Father dispenses the pardon to the sinner for whom 
the Son offers his priestly intercession, and which is 
sealed upon the conscience by the Holy Spirit. How 
can these contrasted operations be conducted by a single 
agent? All this goes to show, not only that there is a 
distinction in the Godhead, but that this distinction is 
real, and not simply nominal. If it be inquired upon 
what ground this differentiation takes place in the 
nature of the Divine Being himself, the answer is found 
in Col. i. 19 and ii. 9. In the latter the statement is 
made that “in him (the Son) dwelleth the fulness of 
the Godhead bodily”; and in the former, “It pleased 
the Father that in him all fulness should dwell.” The 


THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH. ee 


fulness of the Godhead dwells in both, this makes the 
one; but it is derived to the Son from the Father, and 
this distinguishes between the two. In like manner the 
Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the 
Son in the same numerical essence, yielding alike the 
unity and the differentiation of the three. Of course, 
this does not explain the mystery of the triune exist- 
ence; for in this communication of the “fulness of the 
Godhead” there can be no succession in time. With a 
Being who is sélf-existent and eternal there can be no 
succession of thoughts, and therefore no succession of 
moments. The priority is not one of time, but simply 
a “priority of order’! in the revelation which is made 
to us. In the presentation of this abstruse matter we 
are further embarrassed by the want of a common term 
by which to designate the three in the One. Shall we 
describe them as the three Persons in the Godhead ? 
We have only the dialects of earth from which to make 
the selection; and yet any human term would be apt to 
mislead when applied to a form of existence so entirely 
unique as that of the Divine Being. The word person, 
for example, carries with it the notion of a single indi- 
vidual, complete in himself, and separate from every 
other, as locked up in the possession of his own con- 
sciousness, which cannot be invaded from without. In 
employing the word person, therefore, to express the 
distinction in the Godhead, we must carefully guard 


*Pearson’s Haposition of the Creed, Art. 8--On the Holy 
Ghost. : 


14 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


eae the danger of making three Gods instead of one. 
Every science, however, has the right to its own nomen- 
clature; and in our theological language the best we 

can do is to say the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are 
three Persons simply to indicate the thr -eefold distinc-— 
tion in the one Godhead. 

If the one God be thus revealed as subsisting in 
three Persons, there must be the equal concurrence of 
these three in all divine operations, alike in creation, 
providence and grace. By referring to two of the pre- 
ceding testimonies (1 Cor. vii. 4-6 and Eph. iv. 6), 
and also Rom. xi. 36, the reader will perceive that all 
things proceed from the Father by way of eminence, as 
supreme in authority and dominion — from the Son, 
as the immediate Efficient, by whom all things are 
wrought — and the Holy Ghost as the in-breathing 
source of all life, whether it be physical life in the old 
creation or spiritual life in the new creation. By the 
use of three distinct prepositions, almost technically 
employed, from, by and through, the separate agency 
of the three Persons is distinctly marked in all the out- 
ward activities of the Godhead. Thus does the sacred 
book set its final seal upon the profound mystery of the 
Trinity in unity of the divine nature riself, at 18 1m 
this concurring agency of the three Persons of the God- 
head that we find significance in the plural name of 
Jehovah, to which reference has already been made, 
first given in the Book of Genesis, and so frequently 
employed throughout the Old Testament. 


THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH. 15 


If the reader should resile from this mystery, which 
transcends alike the power of human expression and of 
human conception, let him remember that it is far from 
being the only mystery connected with the being of God. 
There is a primal mystery in his underived and neces- 
sary self-existence equally incapable of being understood 
and explained. All forms of being known to us have 
been. produced — something went before in the deriva- 
tion of each. Multiply as we may the links im this 
chain of cause and effect, it cannot be endless without 
denying the fundamental postulate on which all science 
rests — that for every effect there must be the ante- 
cedent cause. We are forced by the simple necessity 
of thought to find the ring-bolt which shall fasten it 
tosome beginning. But what was before the beginning ? 
Only God in his “eternal, underived existence.” It is 
easier to assume the priority of one supreme intelligent 
Creator of the entire universe than it is to hang untold 
myriads of existences on their separate chains in empty 
space without a hook anywhere to support them all. If, 
then, the easier mystery of the underived self-existence 
of the infinite God cannot be brought within the com- 
prehension of human reason, why should we stagger 
under the later mystery involved in the mode of his 
being. Let us rather bow in adoring worship before the 
cloud in which Jehovah conceals the glory of his pres- 
ence! “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst 
thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as 
high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; 


16 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer 
than the earth, and broader than the sea.” (Job x1. 
7, 8, 9.) The reverberation of this solemn challenge is 
heard in the New Testament ascription of praise from 
the lips of the inspired Paul: “O the depth of the riches 
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how 
unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past find- 
ing out! Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or 
who hath been his counsellor? For of him, and through 
him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory 
forever.” (Rom. xi. 83, 34, 36.) Know, vain man, that 
if thou couldst compass God within the measure of thy 
thought, he would be a creature like thyself. What a 
doom it would be to thee to wander in the vastness of 
infinite space and of endless duration without the com- 
panionship of him who alone can fill them both! 

This Introduction cannot be concluded without 
drawing the reader’s attention to the astonishing diselo- 
sure that the gospel scheme of salvation not only has 
its origin in the infinite grace and mercy of God, but 
also finds its method and its execution in his threefold 
personality. It has somewhere been stated that the 
Eddystone Light, on the coast of England, has its first 
chamber in the excavation of a solid rock, to which its 
four walls are glued with strong cement. Thus the 
imposing tower seems to grow from the bony structure 
of the earth to its topmost chamber, from which its 
protecting light is thrown over the waters of the stormy 


¢ 


deep. In like manner we find the “great salvation” 


THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH. £7 


imbedded in the very nature of God and in the mode 
of his subsistence. In the secret counsels of the eternal 
Three is the plan devised. The Father, speaking to the 
Son, proclaims, “I the Lord have called thee in right- 
eousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, 
and will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a 
light of the Gentiles.” (Isa. xlii. 6.) In response to 
this we hear in prophecy the voice of the Son, “Lo, I 
come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, 
I delight to do thy will, O my God.” (Ps. xl. 7, 8.) 
In the New Testament we have his further declaration: 
“TI came down from heaven not to do mine own will, 
but the will of him that sent me” (John vi. 88); and 
at the close of his ministry he says directly to the 
Father, “I have finished the work which thou gavest 
me to do.” (John xvii. 4.) 

In accomplishment of all this we find the Son, in 
the body which has been prepared for him, going down 
into the work-house and forge of his own passion, offer- 
ing up his soul a sacrifice for human guilt. Upon his 
ascension to heaven there follows the dispensation of 
the Holy Spirit, turning the hearts of the children of 
men from sin to holiness, and preparing the redeemed 
for the saints’ inheritance in glory. As this grace 
descends to the sinner from the Father, through the Son, 
by the Holy Spirit, so again it ascends through the 
indwelling of the Spirit, by faith in Christ the Son, to 
be presented blameless and without spot before the 
Father. Thus by two currents, descending and ascend- 


18 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


ing, the redeemed soul moves forever within the bosom 
of the Godhead. Thus, both in counsel and in act, we 
find the scheme of grace springing out from the very 
nature and form of the Divine Being himself. It is 
such a salvation as could only be devised by the God who 
is revealed to us, and as executed by him in his threefold 
distinction as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. What 
amazing security does this view give to the whole system 
of grace, seeing that it cannot fail in a single point 
except through a schism in the Godhead itself. The 
hand trembles that writes the daring suggestion; which 
is only saved from blasphemy by the assurance that he 
who searches the heart knows it is written only to give 
the most intense emphasis to the truth which it declares. 
Well may the Psalmist of old sweep with his fingers 
the strings of the Hebrew lyre to the tune of the sixty- 
second Psalm (vs. 6, 7): “He only is my rock and my 
salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be greatly 
moved. In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock 
of my strength and my refuge isin God.” Equally may 
we join in the refrain: 
“ Glorious things of thee are spoken, 
Sion, city of our God; 
He whose word cannot be broken 
Formed thee for his own abode: 
On the rock of ages founded, 
What can shake thy sure repose? 


With salvation’s walls surrounded, 
Thou mayest smile at all thy foes.” 


If now the Triune God be thus engaged in working 


THE TRI-UNE JEHOVAH. 19 


out this great salvation, there should be in Christian 
experience a recognized fellowship with each of the 
Divine Persons to whom the requisite offices have been 
assigned and by whom they have been discharged. It 
will be the design of the essay which follows to elucidate 
this threefold fellowship, together with the threefold 
assurance which attaches to each. 


CHAPTER II. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD IN THE PERSON OF THE 
FATHER. 


“Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son 
Jesus Christ.”—1 JouN i. 3. 


ILE reader will perhaps exclaim upon reading these 
words, “Is there nothing but mystery in this 
religion of ours?’ Having accepted in faith the first 
ereat secret of God’s underived being, and then of his 
social existence in the three Persons of the Godhead, 
are we still further to individualize these that the 
believer shall come into personal correspondence with 
each? It may serve to soothe the agitation of this 
inquiry to remember that, both in nature and grace, the 
deepest mysteries are brought the most fully within 
our practical knowledge. What mystery can be greater 
than that of life, and of its propagation from generation 
to generation? Yet who can doubt the truth of both, 
upon the testimony of consciousness and of direct 
observation? Equally so, the mystery of spiritual life 
and its origin provokes the skepticism of Nicodemus in 
the question, “How can these things be?’ Yet it is a 
truth brought within our knowledge through an actual 
experience. Who can tell what thought is, and what 
its connection with the greyish matter within the skull 


Se 


— 


Ce ——_ | 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. yal 


which we call the brain? Yet every one thinks, and 
knows that he thinks. Thus, in the Christian religion, 
the profoundest mysteries relating to God, eternity and 
the soul are certified to us in their reality when they 
cannot be explained through our philosophy. 

Let it be further noted that our fellowship with the 
Father, Son and Spirit is not with them in their hidden 
relations within the Godhead, but in the outward work 
which they perform in a revealed system of grace. In 
carefully marking this line of distinction we will be pro- 
tected from error by being kept close to the testimony 
of Scripture. 

The passage at the head of this chapter sufficiently 
affirms our fellowship with the Father. Testimony 
equally explicit will set forth our fellowship with the 
Son and with the Holy Ghost. It may be well, however, 
to mass together just here a few citations which connect 
the believer’s fellowship with all the Persons in the 
active discharge of their respective functions. Thus, in 
John xiv. 1, we read, “Ye believe in God, believe also 
in me;” and in verse 23, “If a man love me, he will 
keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we 
will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” 
The same divine voice, speaking from the midst of the 
golden candlesticks, saith (Rev. iii. 20): “If any man 
hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, 
and will sup with him, and he with me.” Reference 
is made in 1 Cor. xii. 4-6 to the church in her relation 
to each of the three—“There are diversities of gifts, 


29 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


but the same Spirit; and there are differences of admin- 
istrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities 
of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all 
in all.” In Eph. ii. 18 we find the words, “Through 
him (the Son) we both have access by one Spirit unto 
the Father.” Lastly, in Eph. iii. 14-17, the apostle 
says, “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and 
earth is named, that he would grant you, according to 
the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might 
by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell 
in your hearts by faith.” The same distinet fellowship 
with each of the Divine Persons is embodied in many 
other Scriptures, and most notably in the apostolic 
benedictions. 

In what particulars, then, and on what grounds, can 
the believer hold this fellowship with God in the person 
of the Father ? 

1. As first-in the order of subsistence, the Father 
is the Representative and Administrator of Law, to 
whom supreme allegiance is due. Man, created in the 
divine image, is possessed of a moral nature which at 
once brings him under the jurisdiction of law. His 


original righteousness is a derived, not a self-existent, 


quality — entirely dependent upon the divine holiness 
which it simply reflects. It must therefore be subjected 
to a test, in order that through voluntary obedience his 
will may be brought into correspondence with the will 


of his maker, thus adopting the divine holiness as the 


| 
| 
) 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. Be 


reculating principle of his life. When, under force of 
temptation, he violated this law he was brought under 
the penalty of disobedience. No truth can be more 
solemn than this, that in no condition or state of exist- 
ence can man absolve himself from the control and 
authority of the divine law. If, therefore, it should 
please God to show merey to the transgressor, the 
foundation of the scheme must be laid in meeting the 
requirements of strict justice. Thus we find the Father 
appointing the Son to the work of redemption, exacting 
of him the full endurance of the penalty, requiring a 
perfect obedience to the precepts, establishing a perfect 
righteousness, in the which the sinner may stand com- 
pletely justified before the law which he has broken. 
In applying this remedy to the case of an individual 
sinner, the first stage is distinctly a legal process pro- 
ducing conviction of sin. This is done by the Holy 
Spirit bringing the divine law close to the awakened 
conscience, the lower tribunial which God has erected 
in the human soul. Through a judicial mdictment the 
law flashes its light into the guilty soul, until it is made 
to tremble in apprehension of the doom which it antici- 
pates. There can be no proper sense of sin except as 
seen in the light of God’s awful holiness. The natural 
man in his unrenewed state knows sin only under its 
human aspects as crime or vice. These, occurring only 
in human relations and against the interests of general 
society, have a human standard by which they may be : 
measured. Both these are doubtless sins against God; 


24 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


but are recognized as such only when seen as committed 
against him. It is when the commandment comes, to 
use the apostle’s language, that “sin revives and we die.” 
(Rom. vii. 9.) Doubtless the work of the Spirit is to 
produce this conviction of sin through the action of the 
law upon the conscience; but it 1s through the official 
administration of law by the Father that this process 
of conviction obtains. David’s “offence” against Uriah 
was “rank and smelled to heaven”; but it was only when 
his conscience was stirred by the Holy Spirit that he 
breathes his confession, “Against thee, thee only, have 
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.” (Ps. li. 4.) 
Just at this point, when the penitent sinner pleads 
for mercy at the throne of grace, it is again the office 
of the Father to dispense the pardon for which the sup- 
pliant sues. The sense of reconciliation with God, 
through the sealing of this pardon upon the troubled 
conscience, discloses the fellowship which the renewed 
soul has now with the Father. All that has been here 
described in the passage of a sinner from the kingdom 
of darkness into the kingdom of light has its repetition 
through the whole after experience of the believer. As 
he advances in the divine life he gains deeper views of 
the hatefulness of sin, turns from it with increasing 
abhorrence, feels more intently the joy of reconciliation 
with God, and thus becomes more and more distinctly 
conscious of his fellowship with the Father. The Scrip- 
tures give no hint that the first Person of the Godhead 


will ever resign this office as administrator of law. For 


4 


bo 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. 5 
even after the decisions of the judgment day, the Son 
will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that God 
may be all in all. (1 Cor. xv. 24.) Having pronounced 
the Father’s benediction upon those at his right hand, 
the Son has fulfilled on earth his office as Redeemer. 
He will lead the mighty procession through the gates of 
pearl into the presence of the Father (Ps. xxiv.): 
saying, here are those whom thou gavest me to be 
redeemed; I return them to thee freed from the curse 
and stain of sin—‘‘washed, sanctified, justified.” 
(1 Cor. vi. 11.) Thus, through a long eternity, the law, | 
which has “been magnified and made honorable” (Isa. 
xlii. 21) through the obedience of the Son, will be 
administered by the Father over the universe; and the 
redeemed will forever rejoice in their fellowship with 
him as the executive and representative of the Godhead. 

2. There ws fellowship with the Father in the Sov- 
ereignty of his Electing Love. This doctrine is so often 
misunderstood and misrepresented that it will be well 
to set it forth in the express language of Scripture. In 
the Old Testament the Messiah is described as, the chosen 
or elect of the Father. In Isa. xlii. 1 we read as follows: 
“Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect in 
whom my soul delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon 
him; he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” 
In Isa. xi. 1, 2: “And there shall come forth a rod out 
of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his 
roots: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,” 
ete. If, then, the Redeemer of men is thus described 


26 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


as personally chosen of God, the logic of the case will 
require all those who are saved in him to be also chosen 
in him. For if “the Head” be elected, the “Church, 
which is his body and the fulness of him that filleth all 
in all,” must be comprehended within the same eternal 
counsel of the Father. But we are not left merely to 
inferential reasoning, but have the most direct testi- 
mony in support of this gracious truth. In Col. in. 12 
we yead the exhortation to the saints: “Put on there- 
fore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of 
mercies,” ete. The Apostle Peter addresses the strangers 
scattered throughout Asia Minor as “elect according to 
the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctifica- 
tion of the Spirit,” ete. (1 Pet.i.2.) And in his second 
epistle he adds the counsel, “Give diligence to make 
your calling and election sure.” (2 Peter 1. 10.) Dike 
wise, Paul opens his letter to the Thessalonian church 
with the words, “Knowing, brethren beloved, your elec- 
tion of God.” (1 Thes. i. 4.) In 2 Thes. ii. 18 the fuller 
language is employed: “We are bound to give thanks 
alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, 
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to 
salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief 
in the truth.” In Eph. i. 4, 5 the sovereignty of this 
election is thus set forth: “According as he hath chosen 
us in him before the foundation of the world, that we 
should be holy and without blame before him in love: 
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children 
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. 27 


pleasure of his will’— reiterated in verse 11: “In 
whom (Christ) also we have obtained an inheritance, 
being predestinated according to the purpose of him 
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own 
will.” In the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle Paul, 
speaking by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, suspends the 
entire chain of the believer’s salvation from the hook of 
God’s eternal purpose until its last link is fastened to 
the inheritance of heaven: “We know that all things 
work together for good to them that love God, to them 
who are the called according to his purpose. For whom 
he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be con- 
formed to the image of his Son, that he might be the 
firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he 
did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he 
ealled, them he also justified: and whom he justified, 
them he also glorified.” (Rom. viii. 29, 30, 31.) In 
Rom. ix. 10-12 the sovereignty of this election is illus- 
trated from the early patriarchal history: “When Re 
becca also had conceived by one, even by our father 
Isaac (for the children being not yet born, neither hav- 
ing done any good or evil, that the purpose of God 
according to election might stand, not of works, but of 
him that calleth,) it was said unto her, the elder shall 
serve the younger.” In the eleventh chapter, in speaking 
of the rejection of Israel, he adds in verses 5 and 7: 
“Even so then at this present time also there is a rem- 
nant according to the election of grace. What then ? 
Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; 


28 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were 
blinded.” | 

The testimony of our Lord himself is properly re- 
served to give emphasis to the same truth. To the unbe- 
lieving Jews he says in John vi. 37, 39: “All that the 
Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that 
cometh to me J will in no wise cast out. And this is the 
Father’s will that hath sent me, that of all which he hath 
given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up 
again at the last day.” In his mediatorial prayer in 
John xvii. he prays for all who shall believe in him 
as those who were given especially to him by the Father. 
Thus in verse 2 he speaks of the power received from 
the Father — to “give eternal life to as many as were 
given him.” In verse 6 he declares, “I have manifested 
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the 
world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me.” In 
verse 9 he thus distinguishes, “I pray not for the world, 
but for them which thou hast given me; for they are 
thine.” Verse 11: “Holy Father, keep through thine 
own name those whom thou hast given me, that they 
may be one, as we are.” In verse 24 he writes the 
legacy in his own will about to be ratified in death, 
which bequeathes to his redeemed an inheritance of 
glory. “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast 
given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold 
my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst 
me before the foundation of the world.” 


It is not difficult from these passages to determine 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. 29 


what this election is. It refers to ind*vidual sinners of 
the human race who have been chosen in Christ to be 
redeemed and sanctified and made the heirs of eternal 
glory. They are represented as “beloved of the Lord, 
chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit 
and belief of the truth’—as being made “holy and 
without blame before him in love”—as being made“con- 
formable to the image of his Son” (the Christ). These 
and other like descriptive phrases can apply only to 
individual units, and never to collective bodies of men. 
Again, this is not an election contingent upon anything 
foreseen in the character or conduct of the beneficiaries ; 
but is absolute and sovereign, resting alone on the deter- 
mination of the divine will. The predestination is 
expressly declared to be “according to the good pleasure 
of his will”— and again “being predestinated according 
to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the 
counsel of his own will.” (Eph. i. 5,11.) So strong is 
the assertion of the divine sovereignty in the Seriptures 
that Paul indignantly replies to the objector on this 
very point, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest 
against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that 
formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the 
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make 
one vessel unto honor and another to dishonor ?” (Rom. 
ix. 20, 21.) Nor yet was it a decree originating in time 
from any conditions in the administration of the divine 
government; but before the foundation of the world, 
in the depth of that eternity which was before the begin- 


30 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


ning. Perhaps the language of Peter, “elect according 
to the foreknowledge of God,’ may be urged in contra- 
diction of this, and as implying some contingency in the 
case. A fitting occasion will shortly occur for showing 
that what is thus foreknown proves the decree to be rest- 
ing alone upon the divine supremacy. 

No statement in the Bible more deeply stirs the 
resentment of the unrenewed heart than this personal 
election to eternal life. It is alleged to be unfair, unjust 
and abridging human liberty. But as the Seriptures 
already recited affirm an election of some sort, it becomes 
necessary to define its limits both as to whom it em- 
braces and to what it extends. The effort is, therefore, 
made to restrict this election to classes or bodies of men 
who are chosen to certain external privileges. or 
example, God saw fit to select the Hebrews, and to enter 
into covenant with them as his own people. In like 
manner, through all history, there are preferred nations 
who are distinguished by advantages and degrees of 
prosperity not granted to others. Even in ordinary life 
we find large classes of men in possession of dignities 
and emoluments denied to others. In fact, the irregu- 
larities of life are so marked through all the grades of 
human society that all are compelled to admit the 
supremacy of an ordaining will that rules the earth. 
Under these analogies there are some who feel warranted 
in allowing that God may grant even religious privileges 
to individuals or to masses of men which are withheld 
from others, without implying that their final destiny 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. aL 


is fixed in his eternal purpose. But if God may dis- 
eriminate at all, who shall define the limit of his power, 
or draw the line where his sovereignty shall be arrested ? 
We are treading upon very dangerous ground when we 
admit the existence of an infinite and supreme Ruler, 
and then undertake to measure the length of his scepter 
or to abridge the liberty of his will. If we consent that 
God shall be supreme in matters which are temporal, 
but not in those which are spiritual, how are we to build 
a wall between the two? Some election there must be. 
The principle is the same in every case; it must be 
wholly admitted or wholly rejected. It comes at last 
to this: in order to be fair and just, God must treat all 
men alike in every particular,—or he has the right to 
do with all his creatures as shall seem good in his sight. 
We can throw no limitations over his will. He can 
never be unfair or unjust to any under his rule, simply 
because he is God. His own nature, as infinitely holy 
and just, affords the guarantee that all his ways will be 
just and equal with the children of men. 

The further allegation, that personal election to eter- 
nal life abridges human liberty, falls still more easily 
to the ground. This election remains a profound secret 
in the bosom of God until it is revealed in the determina- 
tion of the sinner himself. No one on earth has access 
to “the Lamb’s book of life’ to see what names are writ- 
ten therein. What is wholly unknown to us cannot pos- 
sibly be the reason of our action. There is not a faculty 
of our nature that can be influenced by what is hidden in 


32 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


darkness. The offers of salvation are made fully and 
freely to the children of men; and these are dealt with 
just as each may please. The fact of election is disclosed 
in the result, and in that alone. How there can be any 
abridgment of the sinner’s freedom of choice is incon- 
ceivable, when it is notorious that no man ever rejected 
the Saviour except from his own unwillingness to 
reccive him. 

Enough has been written in rebuttal of objections. 
The stage has now been reached in this discussion for 

a more articulate defence of this great truth, Sin did 
not originate on this earth. In the brief account given 
in the Bible we learn that the angels were created holy, 
and were placed upon probation even in heaven. Some 
of these remained steadfast in their allegiance; others 
“kept not their first estate,” and are now “reserved in 
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of 
the great day.” (Jude vi.) Almighty God is evidently . 
dealing with the great problem of sin, in this case with 
an overwhelming stroke of avenging justice. 

This, however, does not conclude the drama. A new 
scene opens in the creation of man, in like manner holy, 
but placed under a different form of trial. The consti- 
tution appointed for him is strictly federal. One man 
is created alone, as the representative and head of the 
entire race putatively existing in him, to be developed 
from his loins through successive generations until the 
end of time. No intelligent reader of the Scriptures can 


fail to recognize the reason for this peculiar economy. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. oe 


It is based upon the great principle of representation in 
a government of law, and constructs the platform on 
which rests the entire system of grace revealed in the 
gospel of our salvation. The first Adam prepares the 
way for the second Adam, and the covenant of works 
is only the basis of the covenant of grace. For the 
scriptural proof of this relation between the first Adam 
and the second, as well as the connection between the 
dispensations of law and grace, the reader should eare- 
fully read and digest what is written in Romans v. 
12-21 and in 1 Cor. xv. 45-49, both too long to be 
inserted here, 

In dealing with the fallen angels, God made a tri- 
umphant display of his justice: in dealing with fallen 
man, it is his purpose to make an equal disclosure of 
his mercy enthroned in the bosom of his justice. To 
this end the Father appoints his only-begotten Son to 
the work of redemption for lost man. In this new cove- 
nant of grace a seed is given to Christ putatively exist- 
ing in him to be justified by his righteousness; just as 
in the old covenant of works the entire posterity of 
Adam was viewed as existing and falling into con- 
demnation through him. Here, then, is the parallelism 
between the two dispensations; which, standing together 
upon the same constructive principle, must be main- 
tained or abandoned together. Yet just here, in the gift 
of a seed to his Son (Isa. lili. 10, 11), is found the 
decree of personal election, which many regard as unjust 


and dishonorable to God. Would it not be fair, say 


34 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


they, for God to treat all men alike, without this dis- 
crimination — either giving none, or else giving all alike 
to Christ as his seed. It is overlooked in this complaint 
that sin completely estranges man from God, entailing 
upon him a corrupt nature, which left to itself will never 
become reconciled. What is the spectacle before our 
very eyes after the lapse of nineteen centuries since the 
birth of Christ? During this long period it is but a 
small remnant in every generation that, even in Chris- 
tian lands, is willing to accept Jesus Christ as a personal 
Saviour. The offer of salvation made indiscriminately 
to all is known to rest upon the work of One in whom 
“dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily”: who there- 
fore brings all the resources of his divine nature to 
qualify the obedience, which he renders alike to the pen- 
alty and precept of the law which man has broken. His, 
therefore, is a satisfaction rendered to divine justice 
infinitely more complete and glorious than would be the 
ageregate obedience of all the children of men massed 
together in one single act. Yet this perfect salvation, 
so fully revealed and so freely offered to all men, has 
been declined by an overwhelming majority, even of 
those who have lived under the full light of a divine 
revelation. What does this import, but that every sinner 
of our race would do the same if left wholly to the influ- 
ence of that corrupt nature which he inherits. 

But the omniscient God does not need the experiment 
of centuries to learn what man’s treatment of the gospel 
will be. He knows the very nature of sin and what 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. oD 


man’s estrangement from holiness means. Let it be 
remembered that there can be no succession of thoughts 
with God, and therefore no succession of moments. The 
measure of time applies only to man, who lives from one 
beat of the pulse to another. God dwells in his own 
eternity, which is with him an ever-present now. All 
things are with him embraced in the secret of his own 
eternal purpose. In his omniscience he saw the whole 
human race in their successive generations, heedless of 
all the offers of mercy, floating upon the stream of time 
to their eternal doom. This is that foreknowledge of 
God to which St. Peter refers, and of which we affirmed 
in a preceding paragraph that it settles forever the fact 
that election rests alone upon the divine purpose. It is 
not the foreknowledge of those who will accept the great 
salvation; but the foreknowledge that every soul of man 
will of himself reject it to the end. In his absolute 
sovereignty he sees fit to pluck multitudes of these from 
perdition, giving them in covenant to his Son to reward 
the “travail of his soul,” and to be in him the heirs of 
glory in the world to come. Who shall dare to say that 
he has not the right to do this, when all have equally 
rejected the salvation to whom it has been fully offered 2 
Shall it be said that he must either save all or none — 
and that any discrimination would be unfair? Let it 
be replied that Jehovah is still engaged in dealing with 
the problem of sin. In the revelation of mercy there 
must be the equal exhibition of justice. It must not be 
forgotten that in the whole method of salvation by grace, 


36 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


mercy has always been seen wrought out in the sphere 
of justice itself. -Merey acknowledges throughout the 
claim of infinite justice; and justice, on its part, stands 
for the protection of merey. In the results, therefore, 
of the plan of redemption, the vindication of justice 
must stand side by side with the exhibition of mercy. 
Thus it is that in the decree of election there are those 
saved through sovereign and unmerited mercy alone 
whilst others are passed by in the execution of a holy 
justice. A sovereign blessing has been conferred upon 
the one, while no injustice is wrought upon the other. 
Both left to themselves decline alike the offers of grace, 
and God sees fit to exercise his prerogative as the admin- 
istration of law in exhibiting alike his mercy and his 
justice. | 

This doctrine, so often maligned, proves to be the 
pivot upon which our hope of salvation is securely bal- 
anced. Take it out of the Scriptures and out of the 
scheme of grace and the last hope of our salvation 1s 
destroyed. It is the security given by the Father to the 
Son, that he shall not lose the reward of his mediatorial 
work, and the final pledge that all who believe in Christ 
shall certainly be saved. It is therefore referred in the 
Scriptures to the Father as the early and great demon- 
stration of infinite love. Thus we read, “God so loved 
the world that he gave,” etc.; and, again, “We love him 
because he first loved us.” It follows from this that in 
so many passages the name God is given by way of emi- 
nence to the person of the Father, as representatively 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. ot 


in the apostolic benediction, “The grace of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion 
of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.” 

It is in the reciprocation of this sovereign love that 
the believer holds conscious fellowship with the Father. 
In the joy of a Christian hope he feels the thrill of this 
divine love from the Father, through the Son, to him- 
self; and his own heart vibrates in every one of its 
chords to the same. He cannot but join with all the 
saints in the ascription of praise: “O the depth of the 
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how 
unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past find- 
ing out!” 

3. Belevers have fellowship with the Father in the 
grace and privilege of adoption. In Eph. iii. 14, 15 the 
apostle “bows his knees unto the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and 
earth is named’; testifying that the act of adoption 
pertains to the office and work of the first Person of the 
Godhead. He who is the Father of Christ is by neces- 
sary sequence the Father of all who are in Christ. But 
what is adoption? Amongst men it is simply a process 
of law by which one who is not the issue of our loins 
is put among the children, trained and treated as such, 
and entitled to share in the common inheritance. It is 
only a legal fiction at best. There is no act of legislation 
or judicial decree which can transfuse one drop of our 
blood into the veins of an alien, or transfer one feature 
of resemblance to his person, or transmit one distin- 


38 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


guishing trait of mental or moral character. In like 
manner adoption with God has its legal aspects. Le 
originates in that election of grace which has just been 
discussed, and in the Father’s gift to the Son of a sinner 
to be redeemed and saved. This conveys a legal title to 
his absolution from guilt and to his acceptance before 
God. There is as yet no actual conveyance to him of the 
blessings of the covenant. To this end something more 
is required in this adoption of grace. Through a 
spiritual birth the sinner is made a child of God in fact 
as well as in law; precisely as through natural birth a 
real relationship is established among men between 
parent and child. Of such it is written, “Which were 
born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
the will of man, but of God” (John i. 13); also, in 
iii. 8, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God;” again, in 1 John v. 1, “Whosoever 
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” These 
testimonies are sufficient to show that in adoption the 
sinner is made actually a child of God through the new 
birth; and is thus doubly entitled to all the privileges 
of sonship. 

In further proof of the general doctrine of adoption, 
a few passages of Scripture will be cited. In Jer. 11. 19 
God asks of ancient Israel, “How shall I put thee among 
the children? . . . . Thou shalt call me, My Father; 
and shalt not turn away from me.” The final fulfilment 
of this promise, yet to be accomplished, is furnished in 
Heb. x. 16, 17: “This is the covenant that I will make 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. 39 


with them, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into 
their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and 
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” 
Also in Gal. iv. 4, 5, 6: “But when the fulness of time 
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, 
made under the law, to redeem them that were under 
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit 
of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” 
Again, in Rom. viii. 14, 15: “For as many as are led 
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye 
have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; 
but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we 
ery, Abba, Father.” Probably no word in our science 
of theology more completely covers all parts of the 
system of grace than does this word adoption, as may 
be seen from all the citations we have adduced. 

It is proper just here to discriminate against a false 
claim made by men of the world that they are the chil- 
dren of God through natural creation. Doubtless when 
first made in the image of God man was properly a 
child of God, because a “partaker of his holiness.” But 
through the fall this likeness to God is lost; and all 
right to the title of divine sonship is forfeited through 
sin. Whilst, therefore, in his general providence God 
bestows earthly blessings indiscriminately upon the 
righteous and the wicked, they come to the latter by no 
covenant promise, but through the sovereignty of the 
divine will. Yet we daily hear men who have not the 


40 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


fear of God before their eyes pompously exclaiming, 
“Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created 
us?” (Mal. iii. 10.) In the assertion of this claim upon 
a natural ground the design is obviously to obscure, if 
not to obliterate, the distinction between themselves and 


the righteous — and so to justify their neglect and con- 
tempt of the gospel. In the language of holy Scripture 
the title, sons of God, is exclusively applied to those who 
are in Christ Jesus, and who are born, not of the flesh, 
but of the Spirit. 

In this grace of adoption many privileges are em- 
braced, in all of which a recognized fellowship with the 
Father may be enjoyed. These are so intertwined, 
shading into each other like the colors of the spectrum, 
that it is not easy to make a perfect classification. 
There is, for example, the sweetness of reconciliation 
with God. Who does not remember the ecstasy of the 
moment when the burden of guilt was first removed 
from the soul under a sense of pardon sealed for the first 
time upon. an accusing conscience? Who does not recall 
the first joy felt in escaping from the bondage of fear, 
and that in possession of a perfect righteousness he could 
stand before God with the familiar freedom of a child 
in the presence of its father? And yet what is the 
lengthening experience of the Christian but a deepening 
sense of this reconciliation and the fulness of joy spring- 
ing from daily intercourse with God ? 

Again, there is a serene trust in God in the adminis- 
tration of his providence. We know that God does his 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. 41 


pleasure among the armies of heaven and the inhabi- 
tants of earth: still his dispensations towards us are 
often dark and mysterious. Yet the Christian has this 
assurance that to him all things come from a loving 
Father and in fulfilment of a gracious covenant. There 
is nothing penal to him in what grace has converted into 
a discipline of love. This earthly life is simply educa- 
tional, in which the Heavenly Father trains his child 
for the life that is life in that it lasts forever. “All 
things work together for good to them that love God, 
who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 
vill. 28); and these “light afflictions, which are but for 
a moment, work out for us the far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory.” (2 Cor. iv. 17.) Thus, in all 
the changes of earthly fortune the language of Christian 
patience will always be — 
“Trials must and will befall; 
But with humble faith to see 


Love inscribed upon them all, 
This is happiness to me.” 


Still further, there is a divine comfort in the promises. 
‘Two of these have been already quoted: but they are 
innumerable, like the stars scattered over the firmament 
above. They may be compared to circles of electric hight 
diffused through the Scriptures, illuminating every 
part. The question has been raised whether these 
promises are absolute or contingent. It may be replied, 
they are both. When made by the Father to the Son 
they are based upon conditions which he must fulfill; 


42, THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


but through that fulfilment they are made absolute to us. 
They are declared to be “Yea and amen” in him, thus 
doubly affirmed. In the yea the language is, it 1s so; 
in the amen the meaning is, so let it be. The affirmation 
in the one is reéchoed by the continuing affirmation in 
the other. Whilst, therefore, the comfort of these prom- 
ises depends upon their fulfilment by the Son, there is 
another comfort derived from their original issuance 
fiom the Father. It is on this latter that our fellow- 
ship with the Father through the promises is particu- 
larly founded. 

Lastly, there is a holy joy in the security of our 
salvation. Through all the spiritual conflicts of the 
Christian, which are continued to the end of his career 
on earth, this bright star of promise shines upon the 
horizon before him. There is not a quiver of uncer- 
tainty in the assurance that he will be “kept by the 
power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be 
revealed in the last time.” (1 Pet.1.5.) Originating in 
the believer’s eternal election by the Father, fulfilled in 
the work of redemption by the Son, and accomplished 
by the work of the Spirit in his own heart, the promise 
shines with a threefold light upon his path. Not more 
surely did the star in the east guide the wise men to the 
babe in Bethlehem than does this promise safely lead 
the weakest believer into the palace of the King to see 
him in his beauty. 

It is needless to break the unity of this topie into 
further details. Suffice it to say that wherever the 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. 43 


authority of law touches the Christian under the admin- 
istration of grace, there his fellowship with the Father 
as first in the Godhead is disclosed and may be en- 
joyed. 

4. There is fellowship with the Father in the 
supreme worship rendered through him to the Godhead. 
Our Lord taught his disciples to pray, saying, “After 
this manner pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, 
Hallowed be thy name.” (Matt. vi. 9.) He thus places 
upon their lps the language of adoption and designates 
the Father as the Person to be officially addressed. The 
sinner condemned under the law is cut off from all inter- 
course with God; to whom he can make no approach 
except upon the footing of grace and through an 
appointed mediator. This distribution of offices desig- 
nates the Father as the representative of Deity, to whom 
therefore all general and supreme worship should be 
offered. 2 

Undoubtedly the necessities of the believer will 
direct his attention to succor, which can be derived 
immediately from the Son and the Spirit. It is natural, 
therefore, that these needs should be presented directly 
to these Persons respectively. But this, so far from 
disturbing the conclusion reached above, renders it more 
conspicuously evident that to the Father should be 
directed that large worship which includes the agency 
of all the Persons alike. In clearing this subject of 
obscurity as far as may be possible, it is important to 
note this distinction between the more special and the 


44 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


more general acts of worship and to observe the recon- 
ciliation between the two. 

Tn order to exhibit alike this differentiation and this 
unification in all true worship, the following citations 
from Scripture may be presented: In Luke xxiu. 42, 43 
the prayer of the penitent thief is addressed imme- 
diately to Christ —“Lord, remember me when thou 
comest into thy kingdom’”’—with the favorable answer, 
“Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me 
in paradise.” In Acts vii. 59 the dying Stephen 
commends his spirit into the hands of Jesus —“Lord 
Jesus, receive my spirit’”—almost in the words in which 
the Christ had before commended his spirit into the 
hands of the Father. These two instances justify every 
believer in directing his prayer to each of the divine 
Persons in the definite relation which is sustained to 
either of the three. In John xv. 16 the promise is made, 
“Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He 
may give it you.” In Eph. 1. 17 the apostle prays “that 
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation 
in the knowledge of him.” Both these testimonies mark 
the distinction from whom and through whom the bless-_. 
ings of salvation are conveyed to us, and denote the 
preéminence of the Father as the one to whom the 
prayer is directly addressed. This distinction is more 
emphatically announced in Eph. iii. 14-16: “For this 
cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER. 45 


is named, that he would grant you, according to the 

riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his 
Spirit in the inner man,” etc. No exposition of these 
words is needed to call the reader’s attention to the 
supreme fact that all the blessings of salvation emanate 
from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; who, there- 
fore, must be the One to whom our final homage must 
be paid. Under this view, it is easy to see in what sense 
our fellowship with the Father consists. In all these 
acts of worship—-secret, social and public—we recognize 
the tri-unity of the Divine Being. We trace all the 
benefits of grace which we enjoy by the Holy Spirit, 


— through the Son, to the eternal and _ ever-blessed 


Father—the “Father of lights, from whom cometh 
down every good and perfect gift.” 


CHAPTER: TT. 
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD IN THE PERSON OF THE SON. 


“God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship 
his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”—1 CoRINTHIANS i. 9. 


HIS text sets forth our fellowship with the second 
Person of the adorable Trinity under a double 
emphasis—as involved in our effectual calling, and as 
secured to us by the divine faithfulness. The topic will 
be found exceedingly fruitful, unfolding as it does the 
entire method of grace in human salvation. 

1. This fellowship is with the Son, as the orrginal 
source of all divine revelation. Connecting Colossians 
ii. 9 and i. 19, we discover two facts: that the fulness 
of the Godhead dwells in the Son, and yet that it 
descends to him from the Father. This testimony has 
been adduced before to prove the true divinity of our 
blessed Lord, and also his distinction from the Father. 
It is employed now to show the relation he sustains to 
the holy Scriptures. Jn his derivation from the Father 
we are at the fountain-head and source of all revelation. 
The infinite Jehovah is in himself the unknown God, 
“whom no man hath seen nor can see.” (1 Tim. vi. 16.) 
It is in the communication of his fulness to the Son that 
a foundation is laid for the communication of knowledge 
concerning himself to the creature. In this interior 


relation to the Father the Son is styled the “image of 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 47 


the invisible God” (Col. i. 15), and, again, he is 
described as being “the brightness of his glory and the 
express image of his person.” (Heb. 1. 3.) Thus it is 
declared in Scripture, ““No man hath seen God at any 
time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of 
the Father, he hath declared him.” (John i. 18.) 
Again, “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; 
neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and 
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” (Matt. 
x1. 27.) Hence it is that the term Word is one of the 
names which he bears in his divine nature and relations ; 
and it is very significant that his first recorded work 
should be that of creation itself. The testimony is, “In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the 
beginning with God. All things were made by him; 
and without him was not any thing made that was 
made.” (John i. 1, 2, 3.) For what is the created 
universe but one vast word which reveals to us the 
benign wisdom and power of the infinite Jehovah; and 
which it has required the science of ages to explore and 
unfold? How closely welded are the links of this 
splendid chain; the Son through an eternal generation 
is the only-begotten of the Father; for this reason it is 
eminently fitting that he should be the organ of com- 
municating all knowledge concerning him; his first act 
is that of creating the world, which is the beginning 
of that revelation that discloses to us all the purposes of 
law and grace in the sacred Scriptures! 


48 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


As thus hinted, this revelation by the Word was 
only begun in the act of creation. We learn that “the 
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we 
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of 
the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1. 14.) 
Again, “When the fulness of the time was come, God 
sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the 
law.” (Gal. iv. 4.) This, then, is the great “mystery 
of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified 
in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, 
beheved on in the world, received up into glory.” 
(1 Tim. iii. 16.) This brings before us the whole doc- 
trine of the incarnation. It is the simple fact itself 
which concerns us at present: for it is questionable 
whether its full significance is taken up in the concep- 
tion of the church at large. The suggestion is absolutely 
stunning in itself: that he who “‘was in the form of God, 
and thought it no robbery to be equal with God, should 
yet take upon him the form of a servant, and be found 
in fashion as a man.” (Phil. ii. 9.) This means that a 
being who is pure Spirit shall assume human form, one 
person in two natures, wholly dissimilar, yet strictly 
conjoined. But such a Being stands before us pro- 
phetically announced in all the theanthropic appear- 
ances in the period of the patriarchs and the judges, and 
in all the Messianic predictions of the Hebrew prophets, 
to be more fully disclosed in the conception and birth of 
Jesus of Nazareth. 

What does this stupendous fact import, viewed inde- 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 49 


pendently of the work of redemption achieved by him ? 
The answer is found in the almost universal idolatry 
_ which has overspread the earth since the days of the 
flood. The inspired apostle gives the origin of this 
strange departure from Jehovah, that “not liking’ to 
retain God in their knowledge, they changed the glory 
of the uncorruptible God to an image made like to cor- 
ruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and 
creeping things.” (Rom. i. 28, 23.) The ultimate cause 
of this second apostasy of the race is doubtless the utter 
estrangement from God and the consequent corruption 
of nature which sin has produced; but the intervening 
cause, giving the line of direction which was pursued, 
was the difficulty of retaining the idea of an unseen 
Being as an object of worship. This has been the 
apology for idolatry in every age, to-wit, that the 
visible are not the objects upon which the worship termi- 
nates, but only the media through which the real objects 
of worship are brought distinctly before the mind. So 
urgent appears this necessity for a visible representation 
of the spiritual unseen that, in more recent times, and 
under the full blaze of the Christian dispensation, we 
find in the Romish Church the same substitution of the 
visible for the invisible. A material cross is everywhere 
paraded to hold in view the sufferings and death of our 
Lord; and the great atonement wrought thereby must 
be reproduced in the sacraments of the mass. 

This is the larger necessity for the incarnation, not 
only for the redeemed, but for all who are confirmed 


50 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


forever in holiness. God was made “manifest m the 
flesh” in order that the creature in his acts of worship 
might not be strained in overleaping the vast distance 
separating him from the Creator. To this end the only- 
begotten of the Father leaps from his middle throne, 
descending through all the erades of being until he 
reaches man at the bottom of the scale. T henceforth he 
+s the one mediator through whom God descends to the 
creature and the creature ascends to God. The God- 
man becomes thus, through his dual nature, forever the 
medium of worship between the creature and the infinite 
Jehovah. Not only does the saint on earth enjoy this 
advantage, but the saint in glory as well; and not only 
the saints redeemed and glorified, but the angels also 
through the same render their praise and adoration to 
him that sitteth on the throne. For he is “far above all 
principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and 
evury name that is named, not only in this world, but 
also in that which is to come; and the head over all 
things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of 
him that filleth all in all.” (Eph. i. 21,.22, 23.) Here, 
then, the believer finds a ground of fellowship with the 
Son; who is not only the author of all revelation, but 
through the incarnation leads him up to the throne of 
the Father in every act of worship. 

9. There is fellowship with the Son, as the Author 
and Architect of grace in the work of redemption. The 
first intimation of grace is undoubtedly to be found in 
the election to eternal life by the Father, but it has its 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 51 


outworking in the scheme of redemption. The difficul- 
ties which surround the problem of human salvation 
could never be solved, even by a Senate of angels. The 
question, of course, is how can a new and seemingly 
antagonistic principle be introduced into a system of 
law. It is mercy alone that can interpose for the salva- 
tion of the sinner, yet. mercy seems to contradict the 
justice which condemns him under the penalty. Where 
4s the agent to be found who can solve the problem, and 
what shall be his relation to the Law-giver? Evidently 
he must be man and lineally connected with the race 
that has sinned. Otherwise he would have no right to 
offer himself as a substitute, and could not render that 
human obedience which would satisfy all the require- 
ments of justice in the case. Again, he must be one 
who is not subject to the law which he undertakes to 
sustain, for in that case all the obedience he could render 
would be due on his own account, and could not be 
charged to the benefit of another. This sweeps out of 
view at once all created beings in heaven or upon earth. 
Not one such would have any residuary righteousness 
beyond that which is due for himself. There can be 
no work of supererogation on the part of a creature 
who is under law. Still further, the obedience required 
of this agent must be twofold. As the sinner is under 
condemnation, the penalty must be discharged; as 
through transgression the original righteousness has 
been lost, it must be legally restored complete as before. 
This feature is peculiar, and renders the obedience of 


52 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


this agent entirely unique. Under all government, 
human or divine, the subject who obeys the precept 1s 
never brought under the penalty. But here is an agent 
fulfilling all righteousness, who must nevertheless sus- 
tain the full burden of guilt under the curse. Lastly, 
he must be a person who has perfect right over his own 
life, with equal power to resign and to resume it; for 
only in such a case can the obedience to law be shown 
to be voluntary, and also acceptable to the Law-giver. 
Such, then, are the qualifications required in meet- 
ing the equal demands of mercy and of justice in the 
sinner’s salvation. Only in the pavilion of the Godhead 
and within the bosom of the Father could be found the 
agent capable of the vast undertaking. As, in the lan- 
euage of Erskine, Father, Son and Holy Ghost sat 
around the council-board of redemption, the commission 
was given to the Son to accomplish the stupendous work. 
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, 
because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the 
world, that we might live through him.” (1 John tv. anh 
To this end that he might render a human obedience, 
“a body is prepared him” (Heb. x. 4), for he was “made 
of a woman” (Gal. iv. 4); thus becoming strictly the 
woman’s seed, according to the first promise, and 
lineally connected with the race whilst yet the entail 
of original sin was cut off. The human nature was thus 
constituted complete in the possession both of body and 
of soul; bringing him as man under the law and 
enabling him to render the human obedience, both to 


a < Waae 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 53 


its penalty and precept, which was required of any party 
acting as the substitute for the transgressor. It should 
be distinctly observed in this connection that Jesus of 
Nazareth never existed as a mere man; in which case 
his obedience would be due for himself alone. The 
human nature of our Lord never subsisted, even for a 
metaphysical point of time, separate from his person 
as the Son of God. At whatever moment that human 


nature was rendered complete by the union of body and 


soul, it was assumed into the union with his divine 
person. No possible use can therefore be made of the 
obedience of Christ, except to reckon it to those who 


shall be saved through him. Evidently our Lord did 


not need it for himself in his divine nature, for in that 
he was above law. Nor, again, did he need it in his 
human nature, for in that alone he was never under law. 
What disposal of it, therefore, remains, except to apply 
it to those for whom Christ offered himself as a 
redeemer. | 

In like manner his resources in his divine nature 


rendered him equal to the sublime undertaking. Being 


God as well as man, he had perfect knowledge of the law 


emanating from himself and reflecting his own glory. 
He could, therefore, go down through the depths of the 


law so as to exhaust the penalty. He could rise to the 


highest pinnacle of that righteousness which was re- 
quired in the precept. There was thus an inconceivable 
fulness in the obedience which he rendered to both, meet- 
ing the last requisition which justice should make of the 


54 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


sinner. In his atoning work there was an infinite satis- 
faction of all the claims of the divine law with a 
sufficiency in it, if need be, for the salvation of a 
universe of worlds. | 
But had this Christ a right to his own life, to dispose 
of it at his own pleasure? Life is always the gift of 
God, to be held as a sacred trust, and to be laid aside 
only at the call of him who gave it. In the person 
of our Lord, the giver and the receiver of the life are 
the same. It is the Son of God laying down a human 
life for the souls of men. It will be remembered, how- 
ever, that he is acting under the commission of his 
Father; therefore he declares, “This commandment 
have I received of my Father.” Yet in himself he has 
the power to recover it when it has been relinquished. 
Therefore he adds, “No man taketh it from me, but i 
lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, 
and I have power to take it again.” (John x. £3.) In 
this dual statement he affirms the perfect voluntariness 
of his own death and his consciousness of power to rise 
again. , This was distinctly shown at the moment of 
his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, saying to his 
disciples, “Think ye that I can not now pray to my 
Father, and he shall presently give me more than 
twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. xxvi. 58.) And as the 
band of traitors was in the act of arresting him they 
instantly “went backward and fell to the ground.” 
(John xviii. 6.) All the qualifications required for the 
work of human redemption are seen to meet in the mys- 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 55 


terious personality of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through 
a sinless obedience of thirty years, he fulfils the right- 
eousness of the law, receiving thrice from the Father the 
testimony, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased.” In the mysterious anguish of his soul in Geth- 
semane and at Golgotha he exhausted the penalty which 
sin had incurred. His heart-breaking appeal to the 
Father on the cross, “Why hast thou forsaken me?’ 
revuals that the suffering of his soul was strictly penal: 
for the word “forsaken” has its fearful echo in the word 
“depart,” pronouncing in the day of judgment the doom 
of the impenitent. Through his whole work on earth, 
ending in his triumphal resurrection and ascension to 
heaven, our Lord is viewed as the architect of grace. 
Through his costly sufferings and final triumph he 
wrought out the principle of grace and engrafted it upon 
law; in the administration of which Grace shall, as the 
queen majesty, forever sit side by side with Justice. It 
is, therefore, with the Son, as thus working out the whole 
scheme of grace, that the believer recognizes his constant 
fellowship. It is notably in connection with this work 
of atonement that the church holds frequent and public 
communion with her Lord through the sacrament of the 
supper. 

3. We have fellowship with the Son as the trustee 
and head of the redeemed, to each of whom he is respon- 
sible for the application of this grace. The writer of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews certifies that he who is “the 
brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image 


56 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


of his person, when he had by himself purged our sins, 
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” 
(Heb. i. 8.) In his memorable discourse on the day of 
Pentecost Peter declares, “This Jesus hath God raised 
up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by 
the right hand of God exalted, and having received of 
the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed 
forth this, which ye now see and hear.” (Acts 11. 32, 
33.) He reiterates the same statement before the Jewish 
council: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, 
whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God 
exalted with his right hand, to be a Prince and a 
Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgive- 
ness of sins.” (Acts v. 80, 31.) Nay, our Lord himself 
had before his death announced the necessity of his 
departure to the Father, saying to his disciples, “It is 
expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, 
the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, 
I will send him unto you.” (John xvi. 7.) The work 
of redemption was unquestionably finished through his 
death and resurrection; but there remains a second 
function to be fulfilled in the presence and before the 
throne of his Father above. The covenant between the 
two makes the Son responsible to the Father for the 
seed who had been given him. The benefits of his 
redeeming work remain to be applied to all the saints 
until the last one shall be received into glory. Thus, in 
the testimony of our Lord given above, the dispensation 
of the Spirit cannot take place until his own exaltation 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. aye 


on high; and the office of that Spirit is declared to be 


wholly in the application of saving grace to sinful 


men. 


It will not be difficult to trace the different processes 
by which this trustee discharges his suretyship in the 
salvation of all his people. In his death upon Calvary, 
the High Priest of our profession has discharged the 
first part of his necessary office in making atonement 
for sin. The second part remains of entering into the 
holy of holies. The blood shed for the remission of 
sins must be sprinkled before the mercy-seat in the inner 


sanctuary. ‘The propitiatory sacrifice having been con- 


- sumed upon the altar, the priestly intercession follows, 


which is founded upon it. Upon this work of interces- 
sion our Lord enters after his ascension into heaven. 
Thus the seraphic John, looking through the open doors 
into heaven, sees, “in the midst of the throne a Lamb 
as it had been slain.” (Rev. v. 6.) The simple pres- 
ence of this Lamb is an embodied and permanent inter- 
cession, a perpetual oblation of the sacrifice which makes 
expiation for sin. The character and scope of the inter- 


- @ession is presented so vividly in the words of an old 


divine that they are engrossed here. He is viewing the 
sinner under conviction for guilt, trembling at the bar 
of his own conscience in apprehension of the wrath to 
come, when the Intercessor interposes on his behalt: 
“This poor criminal was thine by creation, thy prisoner 
by his rebellion: but thou gavest him to me. I bore 
the curse of the law, due to his sins, for him; behold 


58 THE TUREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


my wounds! TI purchased all saving blessings; lo! 
there is my blood, the price of redemption. The term 
is come. I crave, therefore, that, in consideration of 
what I have done and suffered, he be acquitted, pur- 
chased grace given out to enable him to put in his claim 
at the bar where he now stands personally convicted ; 
and finally, that thereon he be absolved, accepted and 
entered to orderly possession of all purchased privi- 
leges.”! These words indicate the range and the sign 
of our Lord’s priestly intercession. It is for every child 
of God that has lived or shall live in all succeeding 
generations on this sinful earth, and covers the entire 
breadth of experience in every one of these. It is. pre- 
sented in the form of prayer to his Father, as well befits 
the subordination of his office; but conveys at the same 
time a claim of right, founded upon the terms of the 
covenant binding upon both the parties. 

The double office of the priest being thus fulfilled, 
our Lord gathers around him his priestly robes and 
ascends the throne as mediatorial King—uniting the 
mitre with the crown and the crozier with the sceptre. 
All this the reader will remember clearly unfolded in 
the prophecy of Zechariah: “Then take silver and gold, 
and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua, 
the son of Josedech, the high priest; and speak unto 
him saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, 
Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he 


1Walyburton’s Inquiry into the Nature of Regeneration and 
Justification. 


Velie 
a oF 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 59 


shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the 
temple of the Lord: even he shall build the temple 
of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall 
sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a 
priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall 
be between them both.” (Zech. vi. 11,12, 13.) Having 
control thus of the agency of the Holy Ghost, who is 
subordinate to him in office as he is subordinate to the 
Father, the first act of administration is the communica- 
tion of spiritual life to the soul dead in trespasses and 
sins. In his own resurrection Christ not only resumed 
his own life, but brought up also from the penalty of 


the law the redeemed life of all his people. This is 


stored in him, to be held in trust and dispensed to all 
who were given to him by the Father. The communica- 


tion of this life is indeed through the Spirit, but it is 


drawn from the Son, in whom it was invested from the 
beginning; and in the new-birth of the regenerated 
sinner the offices of both are blended. 

This involves, of course, the engrafting of the be- 
liever in Christ, and for which the distinct revelation 
of Christ to the believing soul is required. Here, again, 
the office of the Holy Spirit is involved, not only in the 
disclosure of Christ as the Redeemer, but in working 
that faith through which the believer is forever united 


to him. Well, therefore, may the apostle say, “The life 


which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the 
Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” 
(Gal. ii. 20.) The spiritual life of the Christian is thus 


60 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


a continuous flow from Christ, in whom is the treasury 
of this life through all eternity, ever flowing from its 
divine source and communicated by the indwelling 
Spirit. | ) 
Following this in the order of thought and experience 
alike comes the sealing of pardon upon the guilty and 
accusing conscience. This pardon issues from the 
Father in the exercise of his executive function in the 
administration of the law; and it is applied by the 
Holy Spirit bringing the sinner into perfect reconcilia- 
tion with God. But it comes through the intervening 
agency of the Son, who has purchased the pardon and 
bestows it as a gift from himself to the believing soul. 
As there is a continuing discharge of office with all the 
three, so there is a continuous and enlarging experience 
of the peace over-shadowing the heart in its intercourse 
with a holy God. “And the peace of God, which passeth 
all understanding,” saith the Scripture, “shall keep your 
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Phil. iv. 7.) 
Nor should the relation which Christ sustains to the 
promises be overlooked. These are all “‘yea and amen 
in him,” and for the certainty of their fulfilment, he, 
as the trustee of his people, is personally responsible. 
The very spirit of the gospel lies in them as they breathe 
the infinite and unchanging love of God to the children 
of men. They are the warrant of the believer’s faith, 
and are in large degree the form in which the offer of 
salvation is conveyed. Covering as they do both the 
spiritual and temporal wants of God’s people, these 


\ 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 61 


promises may be regarded in the hght of bank checks 
drawn upon the deposit in the treasury of grace, placed 
_by the Redeemer to the credit of each individual be- 
liever. Jt is there for him, and it is his, to be drawn 
upon the demand of all his necessities as they may arise 
in life. 

These specifications need not be multiplied further. 
They might be extended indefinitely; as, for example, 
in Christ’s administration of providence, by which the 
_ Father trains and educates his children in the school and 
under the discipline of grace, until they shall be pre- 
sented before him in glory, without spot or wrinkle or 
any such thing. The reader cannot fail to see in what 
has been already presented the variety of relations in 
which he stands to Christ, and the fulness of the fellow- 
ship which he may hold with him as the administrator 
of the covenant. In them all he will be constrained to 
add, “*Whom having not seen, we love; in whom, though 
now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy 
unspeakable and full of glory.” (1 Peter i. 8.) 

4. We have specific fellowship with the Son as the 
ummediate object of our faith in the work of redemption. 
God and the sinner are thrown widely apart; and they 
are kept asunder by two repelling forces. The holiness 
of God drives the sinner ever away from itself; the sin- 
fulness of man withdraws him ever from the divine pres- 
ence. Under the combined forces, how shall they ever 
be brought together? The solution of the problem may 
almost be illustrated through a diagram. It consists in 


62 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


throwing a mediator between the two parties, which 
shall be equally related to both and equally the exponent 
of merey and of justice. The reconciliation is to be 
found in a righteousness which shall, on the one hand, 
fulfil all the demands of the law, and meet, on the other 
hand, all the necessities of the transgressor. This recon- 
ciliation is accepted on the part of God, and is offered in 
the gospel to the acceptance of the sinner. Here a diffi- 
culty emerges which is real and not fictitious in its char- 
acter. It is that man is created with an inextinguish- 
able conviction of his responsibility for his own sins. 
How, then, shall he transfer this responsibility to 
another, and consent to stand before God in a righteous- 
ness which is not his own? At first he does not perceive 
how it can ever be made his own; and he staggers under 
the double difficulty of technically accepting the pro- 
posed substitute and practically how to get rid of his 
own self-righteousness, which clings to him as though it 
were a part of his being. Yet this offered righteousness 
must become his if he is to be saved, and it is in the full 
and free acceptance of it that his sense of personal 
responsibility is to be met. Here is shown the power of 
that faith by which the sinner accepts Christ and is 
forever knit to him as his Saviour and Lord. The Holy 
Spirit first of all discloses Christ as perfectly competent 


to work out this righteousness, and then enables the _ 


sinner honestly to accept it with an abiding trust. In 
the language of the Shorter Catechism, “He (the Spirit) 
doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 63 


freely offered to us in the gospel.” Shall it be asked 
how this is done? The answer is that it is the first act 


of the spiritual life infused into the soul at the new 


birth. Natural breathing is the evidence of natural life; 
we breathe in order to live, but we must first live in 
order to breathe. So a divine faith is the first breath 


of the new-born soul, with which it first embraces Christ 
-as the sole author of salvation. 


This righteousness, by which the sinner is now justi- 
fied, consists of two parts—first, in the exhaustion of 
the penalty and the perfect obedience required in the 
precept. This faith, therefore, must distinctly embrace 


both. It matters little whether there is a full conscious- 


ness of this acceptance at the moment of conversion; 
or whether it breaks upon the soul like the dawn of the 
morning, widening into the splendor of noon. The Holy 


Ghost has different ways of entering into a sinner’s 


_ heart—as seen in the cases of Lydia and the jailer, in 


the sixteenth chapter of Acts. It is the same acceptance 
of the Redeemer as our personal Saviour in the single 
act at the beginning, and growing through a thousand 
repetitions into the permanent habit which comes finally 
to know neither a doubt nor a fear. It is hard to see 
how a Christian can fail to grow in the consciousness of 
an increasing fellowship with Christ in the continual 
acceptance of this justifying righteousness. 

There is another view of faith in the acceptance of 
Christ Jesus as the object of our personal love. It 
scarcely needs to be emphasized that love is always 


64 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


directed towards a person. We may admire the qualities 
of a friend, but we love the friend in whom these 
qualities reside. So there may be an intense and holy 
admiration of the attributes of the Divine Being, but 
it is God himself to whom we give the deep and rever- 
ential love of which we are conscious. But it is this God 
viewed, not simply as our creator and preserver, but as 
“God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not 
imputing their trespasses unto them.” (2 Cor. v. 19.) 
Here the doctrine of the incarnation comes in with its 
inexpressible relief and comfort. He is not a God afar 
off, but nigh at hand. He is the God manifest in the 
flesh; who wore our nature that he might be of kin to 
us, our elder brother, bone of our bone and flesh of our 
flesh. He is clothed with all human sympathies and 
affections which are sinless; one who has borne our 
griefs, carried our sorrows; himself preéminently the 
Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He is there- 
fore by experience prepared to enter into the deepest 
sorrows of the human heart; whilst in his divine nature, 
he can bring all the consolation of a divine love to 
sustain us in our anguish. Who is there of God’s chil- 
dren who has not felt'the support and joy of this human 
sympathy, in a divine Saviour at times when the heart 
has been bruised and almost crushed under the succes- 
sive bereavements of life. 

Yet there is even a greater support from the human 
sympathy of Christ which comes to us in our worship 
directed to the Father. The prayers and the praises, 


| 
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9 
q 
3 
; 


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— ——e 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 65 


which we seek to render, appear so contemptible when 
addressed to the great and dreadful God. We shrink 
from them, even after they have been offered; and this 
seems to cancel the faith in which they were first 
attempted. But infinite consolation is found in the fact 
that the great High Priest stands for us before the 
throne, gathering up our prayers in his golden censer, 
and presents them all perfumed with the incense of 
his merit at the mercy-seat. He translates the poor lan- 
guage of our earthly homage into the sacred dialect, 
which is never heard outside the pavilion of the God- 
head. This gives us sweet contentment, even under the 
_ discomfort of conscious deficiency in all our attempts to 
serve and worship God. 

5. We have fellowship with the Son, as he is the 
portion of our mheritance. In Eph. i. 11 we learn how 
this inheritance is acquired: “In whom (Christ) also 
we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated 
according to the purpose of him who worketh all things 
after the counsel of his own will.” In Col. i. 12 it is 
styled an “inheritance of the saints in light.” And in 
1 Peter i. 4, 5 it is described as “an inheritance, incor- 
ruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, 
reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power 
of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed 
in the last time.” In Rom. viii. 16, 17 we have the title 
upon which it is assured to us: “The Spirit itself 
beareth witness with our spirit, that. we are the children 


of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and 


66 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with 
him, that we may be also elorified together.” A twofold 
mvasure of its greatness is here given—that true be- 
lievers are “heirs of God” and “Joint-heirs with Christ.” 
Tt would be more than sufficient to dwell upon the first. 
To be “heirs of God’ implies that we are made par- 
takers of his holiness and of his blessedness, just as far 
as these may be brought within the compass of a finite 
being. This would seem to be beyond the reach of the 
loftiest imagination. But this heirship of God means 
immeasureably more—that we come under the protec 
tion of all the divine attributes, and in a sense to be 
enriched by them. His truth is the only boundary of 
our knowledge; his wisdom, a pledge for our euidance ; 
his power, the guard for our protection; his goodness, 
the only limit of our supply; his mercy, the assurance 
of his continuing love; and his holiness the only 
measure of our sanctification. No one can meditate 
upon this without exclaiming, who is “able to compre- 
hend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, 
and depth, and height ; and to know the love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all 
the fulness of God 1?!) (Eph. aii 18; 192) 

This view of the saints’ inheritance does not pertain, 
however, to the topic under. consideration, which 1s 
rather the joint “heirship with Christ”—“if so be that 
wo suffer with him, that we may be also glorified 
together.” The complete identification of the believer 
with his Lord, so constantly pressed upon our attention 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. 67 


in the Scriptures, is a well of consolation in our earthly 
career. In the distressing conflicts with indwelling sin, 
itis a comfort to know that our blessed Redeemer is still 
carrying on his warfare with the powers of darkness, 
and that our victory is made sure through his antecedent 
triumph. So, again, in all the discipline of trouble, 
pain and sorrow, we are but sharing our Redeemer’s 
humiliation here on earth. Is it not in the contempla- 


tion of this that the apostle uses language which only 
_ the consciousness of inspiration would justify? “Who 


now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that 
which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh 


for his body’s sake, which is the church.” (Col. i. 24.) 


A slight analysis of this joint heirship will enable 
us better to understand its nature. The glorified saint, 
for example, will then enjoy the full fruition of all the 
hopes which he cherished in Christ here below. His 
wanderings will have ceased — his conflicts will be 
over—his tears of sorrowing repentance will have been 
wiped away—he has passed through the gates of pearl 
with the tread of a conqueror. He may bear aloft the 


_ sear of many a wound, but they will then be converted 
into sears of honor. The Lord will then have “perfected 


that which concerneth him” (Ps. exxxviii. 8.), and he 


is safe forever in the everlasting arms. But this joy 


_ of contrast with the past will speedily give place to the 


higher bliss of looking into the face of the King. Our 
Lord seems to intimate this as the peculiar import of 


the saints’ inheritance when he prays “that they may 


68 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, 
which thou hast given me.” (John xvii. 24.) Itis now 
that the blessed transformation 1s completed, when, not 
as in a glass, but face to face, “sve behold the glory of the 
Lord, and are changed into the same image from glory 
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Cor. 
iii. 18.) Who of us has not longed, especially in seasons 
of darkness and sorrow, like Mary in the garden, to 
clasp the knees of his Lord; which, forbidden on earth, 
will be granted forever in heaven? Again, this connec- 
tion with the Redeemer will be drawn even closer when 
we are brought around his person as the immediate rep- 
resentatives of his grace, and giving the first note of the 
new song, which shall be chanted forever. before the 
throne, and of which the angels can only swell the 
chorus: “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God 
by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and 
people and nation; and hast made us unto God kings 
and priests.” (Rev. v. 9, 10.) It will be the unceasing 
wealth of glory to the saint thus to share the triumph 
of the Redeemer in dealing with the problem of sin; 
so as, in the widest sense of the prophecy of Daniel, to 
“fish the transgression and make an end of sin’ for- 
ever. Thus it will be that the Redeemer also shall enjoy 
“the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” 
(Eph. i. 18.) Surely in the hope of such an inheritance 
the believer cannot fail to have a constant fellowship 
with the Son. 


ee 


CHAPTER IV. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD IN THE PERSON OF THE HOLY 
GHOST. 


“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and 
the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you.’’—2 Cor. xiii. 14. 


ELLOWSHIP with the Father and the Son having 
been discussed in the preceding chapters, the third 
clause in the above verse alone claims our attention in 
this. The term communion does not vary in its meaning 
from fellowship; as they are both the translation of 
the same word in the original. Itis, however, singularly 
appropriate in our English version to express the 
peculiar blessing pronounced in this apostolic benedic- 
tion as coming from the third Person of the Godhead. 
As will be especially noted hereafter, all the operations 
of this agent are strictly subjective—wrought within the 
experience of the Christian, and thus in common with 
him. Because of its hidden character a veil of mystery 
shrouds the work of the Holy Spirit, like the mist which 
sometimes covers a mountain landscape. In this respect 
it is more difficult of interpretation than the work either 
of the Father or the Son. The action of these is dis- 
closed through the medium of law—the one in adminis- 
tering, and the other in fulfilling it. Both operations, 
therefore, stand out to view as objects to be recognized. 


70 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


We are able for instance to go arcund the four sides of 
the square, and view the altar of sacrifice for human 
guilt. With equal mental discrimination we can discern 
the Father seated upon his throne and dispensing pardon 
to the penitent sinner. But in the work of the Spirit 
we are called to consider his agency as carried on 
through the complex machinery of all the faculties of 
the human soul. Indeed, there is a vagueness in the 
very name, Spirit, as well as in the indefinite word, pro- 
cession: both of them, with a similar design, concealing 
the nature of his distinction from the other persons of 
the blessed Trinity. The one awful secret as to the 
mode of the divine subsistence will doubtless never be 
disclosed through all eternity. 

Notwithstanding the obscurity which marks the line 
of his distinction from the Father and the Son, the 
proofs are abundant which establish his own personality 
and the personal character of his work. The Scriptures 
caution us not to grieve, nor to vex, nor to resist the 
Holy Spirit, which terms denote sympathies and affec- 
tions which belong only to an individual person, who 
stands in personal relations with other parties. A 
stronger emphasis is laid upon this fact in the still more 
awful warning in reference to the sin against the Holy 
Ghost; with the terrific declaration that it can neither 
be forgiven in this world, nor in the world to come. 
(Matt. xii. 32.) It would be simple impertinence to 
construe such a warning, reaching in its execution into 


the distant eternity, as being directed simply against 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. TA 


an impersonal influence, as some pretend. All the opera- 
tions of the Spirit within the soul of the believer will 
go still further to prove the reality of a personal agency 
in every case. Whilst the mysteriousness of the Spirit’s 
work may render the investigation difficult, its intense 
practicalness as woven into the texture of our religious 
life makes the knowledge of it all the more important. 

1. There ws fellowship with the Holy Spirit wn the 
relation he sustains to the holy Scriptures. . It has been 
already shown in what sense the Son is the original 
source of all revelation. As the Word, he discloses the 
thoughts and purposes which le in the mind of the infi- 
nite Father. But if these are to be conveyed to man 
in a permanent record, they must be strained through a 
human mind and be embodied in human language. 
Here is introduced the agency of the third Person of 
the Godhead. It is his office to convey God’s eternal 
truth into the mind of prophet and apostle, so as to be 
both accurately conceived and safely expressed. This 
process is what is understood in the use of the word 
inspiration. Revelation and inspiration are therefore 


.. strictly correlative. The one gives the divine side and 


the other the human side of the book we call the Bible. 
Inspiration is, then, the outer halo which surrounds the 
head of the Revealer—the second incarnation of him 
who is “God manifest in the flesh.”- It is through the 
combined work of the Son and Spirit that we have in 
the sacred Scriptures an authoritative, because an infal- 


lible, exposition of the divine will in creation and in 


72 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


grace. In the language of the Book itself, “Holy men 
of God spake as they were moved (borne forward) by 
the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter i. 21.) 

It may be asked how was this marvellous effect pro- 
duced? By what method did the Holy Ghost render 
men perfectly infallible, both in their conception and 
in their expression of divine truth? The mystery 
deepens when we consider the difficulties on both sides 
of the problem. On the one hand, the truths which the 
writers record are the secret things of God, which they 
could only know as directly conveyed to them. On the 
other hand, there is every mark of originality with the 
writer of each of the sacred books. The individuality 
of Isaiah is just as distinct from that of Jeremiah, as 
Jeremiah himself can be from Ezekiel. Paul is as dif- 
ferent from John as Peter is from James. And so, from 
the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, 
through the entire canon, each writer puts the seal of 
his individual: genius and taste upon his own composi- 
tion. The subject matter is always and exclusively 
divine, while the medium of conveyance is not only 
distinctly human, but also characteristic of the author 
whose name it bears. 

Let the mystery be accepted without explanation ; 
the certainty of the fact is all that is important to us; 
how it is accomplished is the secret which remains with 
God. After all, the mystery is no greater than those 
which encompass us on every side in the sphere of 
nature, as well as of religion. Who can explain how an 


oe 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. ries 


external object shall pencil its image on the eye, which, 
transmitted to the brain, will give the mental conception 
of a tree, a mountain or a landscape? Who can explain 
how one mind can, through a word or a sign, bear upon 
another mind, and fill it with thoughts and emotions 
just as it may please? Why, then, should we stumble 
at the fact of the Divine Spirit’s influence upon any 
human mind to give it the knowledge he desires? What, 
indeed, is mind? who can tell us its nature? We may 
define it as a part of our spiritual being. But, then, 
what is spirit? What do we know of its essence or of 
the mode of its working? The truth is, we are plunged 
into a sea of mysteries; and the man who will accept 
no mystery may as well abandon thought altogether. 
The ultimate truth is, that we can know nothing of God 
except what he is pleased to reveal. The final issue, 
then, is simply that infidelity must wage its war against 
that revelation. If this should be overthrown, then we 
are without any knowledge of God, eternity and the 
soul. The discoveries of science and the refinements 
of philosophy range within the earthly sphere alone. 
_ And without the knowledge of God man is but a phan- 
tom, the world a bubble, and this life only a dream. In 
all, therefore, of strength and comfort which may be 
drawn from the sacred volume the believer finds his 
_ fellowship with the Holy Ghost. _ 

2. The believer has fellowship with the Holy Ghost 
as the gwer of spiritual life in the new birth. Here, 
again, the work of this blessed agent intersects with 


74 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


that of the eternal Son. The spiritual life, which was 
lost in the transgression, is that which was redeemed 
through the sufferings and death of Christ on the cross. 
This, now, is the life which is restored by the Holy 
Spirit to the soul claimed by this Sufferer as his own. 
It is this necessity of a spiritual birth which our Lord 
announces to Nicodemus as marking the transition of a 
sinner from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of 
God. This impartation of a new hfe to man is repre- 


sented in the Scriptures under different names. It is | 


termed a creation, a resurrection, a quickening, ete.: all 


these expressing the same fundamental idea of the 


giving of life, though under different conditions. In 


none of them, however, is it to be understood that in the 
new birth there is the absolute creation of a human soul. 
In the fall, man did not forfeit any of the natural 
faculties necessary to a being who is still under law, and 
who, therefore, remains voluntary and responsible for 
all his acts. “Ihe right direction of these, however, 1s 
lost, as no longer moving on the plane of holiness, 
through the soul’s entire estrangement from God. It is 
the replacing of this soul in its proper relation to this 
holiness of God which is accomplished in the new birth. 
The spiritual life is the infusion of a new principle and 
power, which shall thenceforward control the whole out- 
ward and inner being of the man. As far as the 
spiritual may be compared with the physical or natural, 
this may be illustrated by the mariner’s compass. This 
consists simply of a thin, narrow piece of metal about 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. fe 


the length of a finger, most delicately poised upon its 
pivot, that it may be perfectly devoid of all friction. Its 
peculiarity is that it is thoroughly magnetized, so that 
it can only rest when lying in the magnetic meridian, 
pointing always to the north. The mariner can thus 
determine the direction of his vessel by measuring the 


deflection from a course due north. Now, the will of 
) 


- man in the first creation was in like manner impregnated 


with the principle of holiness, moving always in a right 
direction towards God as the source of all holiness. But 
the will of man in his fallen condition is like that mari- 


ner’s needle when it has become demagnetized. It has 


lost its virtual principle, which before caused it to lie 


in the direction of holiness. When, however, the Holy 
Ghost restores the spiritual life to the sinner, the rein- 
vestiture of the soul with the holiness it has lost is lke 
restoring the magnetic quality to the needle and fitting 
it again for its appropriate function. 

All this is mysterious enough. Who knows what 
magnetism is in itself? But we know this property of 
it which has been described, and the practical uses to 
which it can be applied. We know that the magnetic 


needle is so balanced as to be perfectly free in its move- 


ments, and yet be controlled by its own magnetic 
property. So the will of a renewed man is free in its 


own action, and yet is under the control of the holiness 


with which it is endued. In like manner we cannot tell 
what animal life is; nor how its power acts upon all the 
organs of the body so as to perform their necessary 


76 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


functions. Why should we expect to understand the 
more subtle agency of the Divine Spirit, as he works 
upon and through the more mysterious and delicate 
organism of the human soul ? | 
The very name given to this Person of the Godhead, 
Spirit or breath, imphes that he is the manifestation of 
life, in its secrecy and power. The sign of the presence 
of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. was “the 
sound of a rushing mighty wind.” (Acts ii. 2.) So 
our Lord, on his first appearance to the collected dis- 
ciples after his resurrection, breathed upon them and 
said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” (John xx. 22.) 
Again, if we reflect the light of the New Testament 
upon the Old, we read in the history of the creation that 
“the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” 
(Gen. i. 2)—indicated under the term wind. Thus, 
brooding over chaos as the principle of life, he became 
the separating force which “divided the waters which 
were under the firmament from the waters which were 
above the firmament.” (Gen. i. 6.) In the same his- 
tory, when God created man he “breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul.” (Gen. 11. 7.) Who but the Spirit, or breath of 
God, should breathe this life into the inanimate clay; 
and through the infusion of an immortal soul, make the 
indwelling of this Spirit the necessary condition of the 
life of the body through all time? We may stretch our 
conception even beyond this. The most marvellous 
feature of our modern science is that it discloses the 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 77 


hiding of God’s power throughout nature. What are all 
these mysterious forces of nature but the products of 
his secret power in matter itself? What is force but 
the expression of will? And what is will but the pro- 
perty of a being that has life? And what is life but the 
breath of the Creator himself? And who should be the 
breather of this life, whether in nature or in grace, but 
he whose style and title is the Spirit or Breath of God ? 
Whatever may be thought of this as merely human 
speculation, it is certainly true that God reveals his 
secret power through the scheme of grace in the salvation 
of men. And the Holy Spirit is the immediate agent 
by whom this power is wrought, lifting the soul of man 
out of death itself into the life of God forever. In the 
possession of this spiritual life, and in all its conscious 
activities, the renewed soul must recognize its fellowship 
with the Spirit. 

38. The third Person of the Godhead, in due subordi- 
nation of office, becomes the efficient agent im applying 
the purchased salvation to sinners of our race. This 
brings into view his permanent indwelling in the heart 
- which has been renewed. The distinct promise of our 
Lord is, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” 
(John xiv. 16.) The word here translated Comforter 
1s paraclete, which signifies one called in from without 
to assist us. For example, one embarrassed in his busi- 
ness, will call in some one learned in law to assist him 
with his counsel. Again, one prostrate with disease 


78 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHID. 


needs an able physician to restore him to health, ‘Thus 
our Lord is the one advocate interposing before the bar 
of divine justice for us sinners; “if any man sin, we 
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
righteous.” (1 John ii. 1.) The Holy Ghost becomes 
the other advocate or comforter, whose office is to cleanse 
us from sin. Their two offices interlock and become 
equally necessary. to our salvation. Hence his perma- 
nent indwelling for the purpose of stimulating and 


expanding that spiritual life which he has infused. This — 


constant impelling force may be traced in many par- 
ticulars. The very first to be noticed is the manifesta- 


tion of this spiritual life in the act of faith, in which 


the Lord Jesus is accepted as a personal Saviour. “By 
grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of your- 
selves: it is the gift of God.” (Eph. 11. 8.) Itis im 
this our sense of responsibility under the law is dis- 
tinctly met, removing a legal difficulty to which refer- 
ence has already been made. It is in this way we dispose 
of those sins of which we are conscious, by laying them 
on a substitute, to be dealt with under the law which 
we have broken. In this act of faith also is effected our 
mystical, but real, union with Christ. Thus we draw 
continually upon that life which has been stored in him 
as our Redeemer, and which the Holy Ghost first infused 
and constantly invigorates. Thus the believer is made 
one party with Christ, lashed together by two reciprocal 
bonds. The bond on the part of the believer is this act 
of faith, which makes him one with Christ; the bond 


<n 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 79 


on the part of the Redeemer is this gift of the Holy 
Spirit, through whom Christ is made to dwell in us. 
The two corresponding and scriptural phrases, Christ 
in us and we in Christ, cover, through justification and 
sanctification, the whole ground of our salvation. It is 
in the exercise of this faith that we grow from babes 
unto “the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ.” -(Hph.iv. 13.) 

The reader should observe the harmony of the gospel 
plan in the close connection here of faith with repent- 
ance. They are themselves distinct acts of the soul, yet 
so strictly conjoined that they are but the two poles of 


the same procedure. While faith is looking upon Christ 


as the Saviour from sin, repentance is looking at the 
sin which needs the Saviour. It is an act in which the 


penitent repudiates his sins and puts them away from 


him, with the purpose of a new and holy obedience of 
the law, which has now become to him the law of Christ. 
It is only the Divine Spirit who can quicken the con- 


science into a true sense of sin, and who can quicken 


the will into a fixed purpose to forsake it. It is 


delightful to see how completely, through these conjoint 
acts of faith and repentance, sin is covered up forever 
from the view of God and man. The former no longer 
sees the sin which is covered under the blood of the 


sacrifice: the latter no longer sees his sins borne away 


_ by the scape-goat and lost in the wilderness forever. 


Next in the sequence of thought follows the pardon 
which the Spirit seals upon the troubled conscience, with 


80 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


the sweet sense of reconciliation with God. Through 
the intercession of the High Priest within the veil, this 
pardon is obtained from him who sits upon the throne ; 
and the order is issued for its dispensation to the sinner. 
To the Holy Spirit, as the vicar and representative of 
the Son, is assigned the immediate application of the 
same. An order for the pardon of a criminal brings 
to him no comfort until, through its execution, the prison 
doors are thrown open and he breathes again the free 
air of heaven. It is the function of the Holy Spirit to | 
release the sinner from the bondage of the law and 
introduce him into the liberty of the gospel. This sense 
of reconciliation with God may again and again fade 
away from the soul which relaxes its hold upon the 
person and work of the Redeemer. But just as often 
does the Holy Spirit revive the faith in the promises 
of the Word. We know not the power in nature which 
rolls back the ebbing tide from the heart of the sea, again 
to dash its foam against the shore. Even so in the 
ebbing of the spiritual life, its returning current sweeps 
on with a broader flood under the increasing power of 
the Spirit’s influence. The sense of pardon is sweeter 
and stronger the oftener it is renewed, and the recon- 
ciliation with God becomes the more precious after each 
estrangement. It is marvellous how often protection is 
found in the very weakness which betrays into danger. 
The human eye, for example, guarded as it is by the 
fringe which hangs over it, finds its greatest. security 
in that exquisite sensibility which immediately drowns 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 81 


out the offending mote in a flood of tears. So the chief 


_ security of the believer is to be found in that tenderness 


of conscience which recoils from every temptation, and 


which derives its sensibility alone from the quickening 


energy of the Divine Spirit. Thus, through the whole 
period of the believer’s discipline on earth, there is 
required this constant. sealing of pardon upon the con- 


science, with its renewed sense of reconciliation with 


me. “God. 


Almost in logical connection with this is the Spirit’s 
action in completing the believer’s adoption into the 
family of God. This adoption finds its legal authority 


in the deeree of the Father, and is grounded upon the 


work of the Son, as the High Priest, making both atone- 


ment and intercession for us. But the actual transfer 
of an alien so as to make him really a child of God is 


the work of the Divine Spirit. Thus we read in the 


Seriptures: “As many as received him, to them gave 
he power to become the sons of God, even to them that 
believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, not 


_of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 


God.” (John i. 12, 13.) “As many as are led by the 


Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Rom. viii. 


14.) “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath 


___ bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of 
. God: . . . beloved, now are we the sons of God, and 


it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know 
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for 


we shall see him as he is.” (1 John iii. 1,-2.) This 


82 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


transition is accomplished in the moment and in the 
act of the new birth. Just as natural birth makes one 
a child, so it is with spiritual birth in the family of 
God. Again, as in nature those who are children have 
the filial spirit which makes the natural relation; so 
in grace the spirit of adoption is bestowed upon those 
that become the children of God. Thus it is written: 
“Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to 
fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, 
whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” (Rom. vii. 15.) This 
requires the constant testimony of the Spirit, the author 
of the spiritual birth which first placed us among the 
children and first infused the spirit of adoption. He 
must, therefore, through our chequered life upon earth, 
renew and strengthen the spirit of children. Upon him 
in this delightful function of his office will depend the 
closeness and the sweetness of our intercourse with him 
who is our Father and with him who is our Elder 
Brother; and it may be added also, the sweetness of our 
intercourse with all who have “like precious faith” im 
the same precious gospel of our salvation. 

Among these specifications of the Spirit’s work in 
the application of redemption, his agency in the admin- 
istration of the promises must not be overlooked. This 
brings distinctly before us his function as a teacher. 
This our Lord sets forth, and also his apostles: “The 
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father 
will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and 
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 83 


me said unto you.” Cy ohn xiv. 26.) “Howbeit when he, 


Int .y 


the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all 
___ truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever 
he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew 


you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall 


receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” (John 
| “xvi. 13,14.) “God hath revealed them (things unseen) 
e unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all 
things, yea, the deep things of God.” (1 Cor. ii. 10.) 
: “The anointing which ye have received of him abideth 


in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as 


the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is 
_ truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye 


shall abide in him.” (1 John ii, 27.) As he has by 
inspiration given in the Scriptures an infallible record 
of divine truth, so it is his province to illuminate that 


__word so as to throw its reflected light into the darkened 


mind of man and fill it with knowledge of God and 
eternal things. A twofold operation is here conjoined— 
the illumination of the word, and the opening of the 
understanding to receive it. Both are necessary to 


ae unfold the knowledge of Christ and of the salvation 
which he has wrought. “Search the scriptures,” saith 


our Lord, “for in them ye think ye have eternal life: 


and they are they which testify of me.” (John v. 39.) 
_ Again it is written: “Searching what, or what manner 
Bh of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did 


signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of 


_ Christ, and the glory that should follow.” (1 Peter 


ett) 


84 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


All this truth les in the promises, for the gracious 
confirmation of our faith. It is therefore the special 
function of him who is the “Comforter” to bring these 
to our remembrance and to apply them for our support 
and guidance through all the discipline of this earthly 
life. It was for this our Lord went to his Father, that 
he might send the Spirit to remain as his representative, 
finishing his work of redeeming love here below. It is 
through the administration of these promises that the 
believer’s sanctification is secured; since these form, as 
it were, the handle by which he takes hold of all the 
truth of God communicated for his appropriation and 
use. Thus we are told, ““Whereby are given unto us’ 
exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye 
might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped 
the corruption that is in the world through lust.” 
(2 Peter i. 4.) It has been said with epigramatic force 
that the promises are the sanction of the gospel, as the 
penalty is the sanction of the law. This is a very broad 
line drawn between the two. The law binds duty upon 
the conscience under a severe threat; but the gospel 
enforces its obligations through a sweet assurance of 
divine help in their discharge. This distinction fairly 
meets the question which has been raised, whether the 
gospel is in any sense to be construed as a law. Most 
certainly not in the meaning of those who contend that 
the operation of grace is not to provide a complete 
righteousness for the sinner, but only to cut down the 
requirements of the law so as to bring them within his 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 85 


diminished ability. This would simply be to reéstablish 
the covenant of works, by which the sinner obtains salva- 
tion through his own righteousness instead of that which 
Christ has wrought. Such an arrangement would be a 
compromise, in which the Divine Being would not only 
be robbed of a portion of that which is his due, but 


___would compel him to receive the balance in very depre- 


_ ciated coin. The gospel, on the contrary, supremely 


-vindicates the authority of God in that it requires 
perfect fulfilment of law in the redemption of the 
sinner. Kvery word of God, whether in law or grace, 
must be authoritative, as expressing the will that is 
supreme. The distinction lies just here; the authority 
of law is strictly maintained in the gospel, but the obe- 
_dience rendered to it views it as the law of Christ. Its 
sanction is the promise of eternal life, and therefore it 
is obeyed through the principle of love, and not of fear; 
not as the ground of our salvation, but as the evidence 
of it. The salvation is already begun in the renewal 
and partial sanctification of the believer. The obedience 
springs from the power of a divine life already in the 
soul, and is continually sweetened by the tokens of favor 
’ and acceptance which come from above. 

Closely allied with the administration of the 


ae promises is the Spirit?s aid in the office and duty of 


_ prayer. If through the pardon of sin we have recon- 


_ ¢iliation with God, there should ensue an easy and 


__ delightful intercourse with our Father in heaven. This 


now is secured to us through the double intervention 


86 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


of the Son and of the Spirit. The former makes inter- 
cession for us in the chancery above, presenting our 
claims to all the blessings of salvation, and securing 
the grant of them under a judicial decree from the 
Father. The latter, as the intercessor below, transfers 
the prayer from the supplant on earth, and thus it 
ascends to the throne of grace as the prayer of faith, 
enforced by the double endorsement of two of the parties 
to the covenant of redemption. These statements are 
here made under the authority of what is written in 
the scriptures: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our 
infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for 
as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession — 
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And 
he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is the mind 
of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the 
saints according to the will of God.” (Rom. viii. 26, 
27.) 

A very slight analysis of this important passage will 
disclose the nature of that courage which comes into 
the fainting heart of the Christian. “The Spirit helpeth 
our infirmities ;” he does not remove them, but helps us 
to bear them. The word here used is very strong. It 
presents the picture of one who takes hold of our burden 
with us, on the other side of it, as our opposite. The 
case is so urgent that we know not how to pray, or what 
to ask in the prayer. The Holy Spirit comes to our 
relief by placing the right petition upon our lips, and 
filling us with the proper desire and fluency in present- 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 87 


_ ing it at the mercy-seat. His intercession is not outside 


s ot us, like that of our High Priest above. It is wholly 
__ within us, by a direct influence upon the soul, uphold- 


ing, teaching, guiding, strengthening the faith and 


. stimulating the hope of acceptance with God. 


eri Just at this point, let the reader consider the ground 
of that confidence which is now inspired. He to whom 


the prayer is addressed “knoweth the mind of the Spirit, 


that he maketh intercession according to the will of 
| God.” In this wonderful economy of grace the Father 
looks into the prayer of his struggling child and finds in 
it the wish and desire of the Holy Spirit. This he cannot 
Pv ioil to satisfy, because the prayer of the creature has 


now become an official demand of the divine agent whose 


province it is to urge the claim. Nor is this all. This 


ee interposition of the Spirit is seen to be in full accord 


_ with the will of the Godhead as expressed in the eternal 


covenant of grace. The Father originally designated the 


blessings to be conveyed; the Son has executed the 
terms on which these were to be purchased; and the 


Holy Ghost has fulfilled his office in working the whole 


scheme out in the prayer which he has inspired in the 


heart of the suppliant. It is written, “A threefold cord 


: is not quickly broken:” and here is the threefold pur- 
pose and agency of all the Persons of the Godhead. 
~ How can it fail at the very moment of its fulfilment? 
- Surely this must be “the effectual fervent prayer of a 
_Tighteous man”; which takes its utterance from the 
— lips of the divine Intercesgor’s pleading, at the footstool 


88 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


of Infinite Mercy, for that which Infinite Love designed 
originally to bestow. 

Finally; in this general survey of the Spirit’s work 
within the soul of the believer, his agency in producing 
the fruits of holiness should not be omitted. ‘“THerein 
is my Father glorified,” says our Lord, “that ye bear 
much fruit’ (John xv. 9); adding the significant 
caution, “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 
except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye 
abide in me” (verse 4). This requires the progressive 
sanctification of the believer, developing a symmetrical 
character, and one adorned with all the spiritual 
graces. ‘These are expressly defined as “the fruits of 
the Spirit.” (Gal. v. 22, 23.) They are like the fruit 
of a tree hanging from the branches, which extend from 
every side, showing the vigor of life in the parent, trunk 
and branch alike. It is thus through the general 
invigoration of the spiritual life in the soul that a well- 
proportioned character is built up, bearing its constant 
but silent testimony to the exceeding riches of divine 
grace before a world lying in sin. This spiritual life 
our Lord compares to the sap in the vine, the actual 
blood of the plant, which is conducted through the stem 
into the branches, forming the ripe clusters of the 
luscious grapes, which yield the “wine that maketh glad 
the heart of man” (Ps. civ. 15). In all these different 
forms of the Spirit’s action within the soul, the believer 
traces the manifold fellowship he may hold with this 
Person of the blessed Trinity. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 89 


4. Three operations of the Spirit remain to be con- 
sidered ; not so much within the experience of the Chris- 
tian as upon and confirmatory of it. The first of these 
is the testimony which he bears to the reality of the 
believer’s hope in Christ. The inspired apostle declares, 
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that 
we are the children of God.” (Rom. viii. 16.) The 
language is forensic, as relating to a case on trial before 
a court. The issue is to the soundness of a believer’s 
title to eternal life. This must be determined by the 
concurring testimony of two witness—the believer’s own 
consciousness on the one hand, and the testimony of the 
Holy Spirit on the other. The concurrence of the two 
is declared to be necessary: ‘The Spirit beareth witness 
with our spirit.” The former must not only agree with 
the latter; but it must be delivered through it, as alone 
consistent with the subjective character of this agent’s 
work throughout. | 

Let us take a concrete case for illustration. A Chris- 
tian addresses himself in earnest to the work of self- 
examination, in order to know with certainty that he 
is a child of God. He finds much in his outer and inner 
life to bewail and confess before his righteous Judge: 
yet even in his seasons of darkness under the hiding of 
his Father’s face, he cannot relax his hold upon the 
person and work of the Redeemer. ‘He is obliged to 
testify that, if he knows anything with certainty on 
earth, it is that he relies upon Christ alone for salvation. 
Now this, according to the teaching of the scriptures, 


90 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


ought to bring peace to his troubled heart; but it does 
not. The peace of God does not come to a single soul 
through a mere logical process. No man ever reasoned 
himself into a-sense of reconciliation with God as a 
loving and gracious Father. The testimony of con- 
sciousness is indispensable as the basis of proof, but it 
must be confirmed by a different testimony from another 
party. This new evidence is furnished by the Holy 
Spirit when he brings peace to the soul which has been 
disturbed by doubt and fear. The believer knows from 
his own consciousness that he rests alone in the redemp- 
tion of Christ for salvation, and the Spirit who wrought 


this faith in him now attests it by shedding abroad in 


his heart the “peace which passeth all understanding.” 
(Phil. iv. 7.) Thus, through the entire range of Chris- 
tian experience, the Holy Spirit attests it as genuine by 
the comfort, and peace, and joy with which it should 
be crowned. 

The Scriptures speak also of the sealing of the 
Spirit. The use of the seal has been common in all ages 
and among all nations, and for a great variety of pur- 
poses. The most common of these is as a sign of 
possession, marking anything as one’s own. Again, it 
is employed for the authentication of one person as the 
agent of another; as when a representative of one goy- 
ernment bears the seal of his commission to another. 
Still again, its object is to ensure protection to those 
who may be dependent upon us for the same. These 
examples will suffice for the illustration of the few pas- 


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FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 91 


sages to be adduced now from the Scriptures. Our Lord 
says to the Jews: “Labour not for the meat which per- 
isheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting 
life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for 
him hath God the Father sealed.” (John vi. 27.) 
He evidently means that he, as the Son of man, has 


been authenticated as able to give this enduring meat 


through the stupendous miracle which had just. been 


wrought before their eyes. Again: ‘Now he which 
stablisheth us with you in Christ, . . . hath also 
sealed us, and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our 
Meare, (2: Cor 11.21; 22.) Also, “In whom after 
that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit 
of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until 
the redemption of the purchased possession.” (Eph. 
1.13, 14.) In these last two passages the meaning is 
plainly the same. The Spirit is regarded as the seal 


of God’s right of property in the believer; and is an 


assurance of the divine protection even to the end. In 
lke manner, and with like import, the same apostle 
exhorts the Christian, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of 
God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” 
(Eph. iv. 30.) It will not be necessary to enlarge 
further upon this topic of the sealing of the Spirit; 
since this would be the repetition and expansion of all 
that has been written in the preceding section of this 
chapter. The same inward operations of the Holy Spirit 
are embraced in the term; only that in this they are 


° ° | - ») 
presented as corroborative evidence of the believer’s 


92 THE THREEFOLD FELLOWSHIP. 


acceptance with God, and as security given for his 
eternal salvation. ) 

In two of the preceding citations the earnest of the 
Spirit is connected with his sealing. Only a slight dif- 
ference of meaning obtains between the two. An earnest 
is simply a partial payment of anything, as a pledge 
of fidelity for the remainder. In this sense the pos- 
session of the Holy Spirit, with all that he accomplishes 
in the human soul, is an assurance to the believer that 
he is an heir of glory; and that he enjoys on earth a 
portion of that inheritance which shall be his in full 
possession hereafter. The same Divine Spirit, who on 
earth is the bond of our union with Christ, will dwell 
within us forever—the living tie which still unites us 
to our Head. The same divine life, which quickened us 
here below, will be the life which will quicken us above. 
The same divine power, which here expands all the 
faculties of the soul, will there before the throne enlarge 
them to drink in the fulness of God evermore. Thus the 
Spirit becomes to us, in very truth, the “earnest of our 
inheritance.” 

In this connection it would be a strange omission not 
to emphasize the Spirit’s agency in the resurrection of 
the body. Whilst the resurrection of Christ is the 
ground and pledge of our own, the agent in its accom- 
plishment is the Holy Spirit, through his office as the 
quickener. Paul testifies: “If the Spirit of him that 
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that 
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your 


Lex FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY GHOST. 93 


ao mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” 
(Rom. viii. 11.) The body is a part of us, no less than 
the soul. Both have fallen away from God under the 
dominion of sin. The curse of the law rests equally 
upon both, and both necessarily share in the grace of 
adoption. We shall be human beings in heaven as well 
as here—rendered such by the union of body and 
. _ spirit—both equally glorified so as to be made meet for 
5 a glorified state. To the Spirit’s care is committed the 
_ body of the saint, even in the grave. His head rests 
- upon the pillow of the covenant; and the Holy Spirit 
- lights the lamp of promise, which chases away the gloom 
- of the sepulchre. He who is “the resurrection and the 
, i life” “will appear a second time, to be glorified in his 
, _ saints and admired in them that believe.” 
; “Forever with the Lord,’ 

Amen!:so let it, be; 


Life from the dead is in that word, 
’Tis immortality.” 


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The Threefold Assurance. 


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“The Threetold Assurance. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 


“Unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the 
acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the father, and of 
Christ.”—CoLOSSIANS ii. 2. 

- (YPXUE first part of this essay was employed in point- 

ing out the followship of believers with each Per- 
son of the Godhead in their threefold office-work, by 
and through which the sinner’s salvation is both accom- 
plished and unfolded. The object of this second part 
will be the application of all this to the doctrine ot 
Christian assurance in its threefold form: assurance of 
understanding, assurance of faith and assurance of hope. 
It is to the first of these the reader’s attention will be 
directed in the present chapter. 

Christianity is the only system depending on moral 
or probable evidence that proposes to bring its adherents 
to entire certainty of its contents. In rigid demonstra- 
tion, as in mathematical reasoning, if the mind only 
holds together the successive steps, the conclusion is irre- 
sistible and exclusive of doubt. In moral reasoning, 


such as we are forced to employ in the affairs of life, 


98 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANOE. 


the evidence turns upon contingencies which are more 
or less capable of proof. We are compelled to put this 
against that, to sift and to weigh facts; and our convic- 
tion is strong or weak according to the amount of evi- 
dence which we accumulate in this scale or that. Now, 
it is wonderful that the gospel, proceeding on this line 
of proof, should undertake to produce the threefold 
assurance spoken of above; that is, to bring certainty 
on every point at which it touches the believer at all. 
This certainty is affirmed in the verse cited above, with 
a fourfold intensification of language. The apostle ex- 
presses his desire that the Colossians may have not only 


an understanding of the truth, but the assurance of that 


understanding; and beyond this, the fulness of that 
assurance; and then the riches of that fulness; and 
finally, the riches entire—the whole wealth of the 
fulness of the assurance of understanding. This is the 
more remarkable when you consider the variety of topics 
in the gospel, their transcendental character, and the 
opposition it encounters from man’s corrupt nature. 
This is far from being the only passage in Scripture 
which affirms the necessity of knowledge in order to 
faith. It may be well to accumulate testimony upon this 
point, as well as upon the certainty of the same, and 
upon the fact that both these come by direct communi- 
cation from God through the Spirit. Our Lord him- 
self declares, “If any man will do his will, he shall know 
of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak 
of myself.” (John vii. 17.) “This is the life eternal, 


. as oe a) 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 99 


that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John xvi. 8.) “Ye 
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 
(John viii. 32.) In like manner the inspired apostles 
deliver their testimony. “God . . . hath shined in 
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory 
_ of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. iv. 6.) 
_  , , And to know the love of Christ, which passeth 
knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness 
of God.” (Eph. iii. 19.) “The God of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit 
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the 


eyes of your understanding being enlightened.” (Eph. 


1.17, 18.) “We do not cease to pray for you, and to 
desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his 


will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” (Col. 


1.9.) “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through 
the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.” (2 Peter 
1.2.) “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
given us an understanding, that we may know him that 
is true.” (1 John v. 20.) In addition to the above, two 
other testimonies may be cited establishing the absolute 
- certainty of this knowledge. ‘Hereby we do know that 
we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 
di. 3); also, “Hereby we know that we are of the truth, 


% and shall assure our hearts before him.” (1 John 111. 


19.) 
Other testimonies will suffice to show that our 
assured knowledge of the truth does not come alone 


100 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


through the accuracy of our own logical processes, but 
through a direct unfolding of the same by the Holy 
Spirit. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh 
and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
which is in heaven.” (Matt. xvi. 17.) “The Comforter, 
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in 
my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all 
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said 
unto you.” (John xiv. 26.) Still further, “When he, 
the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all 
truth: . . . for he shall receive of mine, and shall 
shew it unto you.” (John xvi. 14.) “No man can say 
that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” (1 Cor. | 
xi. 3.) “In everything ye are enriched by him 
(Christ), in all utterance, and in all knowledge.” 
(a Cores: } 

What, then, do the Scriptures mean by this assur- 
ance of understanding, and how is it possible to exist ? 
Not that reason is able to comprehend all the mysteries 
in the system of grace, but that we may be perfectly 
persuaded, or assured, that we have God’s mind in the 
gospel—that it is the truth, and that we rightly under- 
stand it. It is not only that we know the truth of God, 
but we know that we know it. It remains, then, for us 
to see upon what grounds is such full assurance of under- 
standing possible to the Christian. 

1. Divine truth is received by the believer upon the 
authority of a divine testimony. The very purpose of 
the Scriptures is to disclose the mind of God in the 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 101 


salvation of the sinner. There is no other way of know- 
ing it except through a revelation distinctly guaranteed 
as coming from himself. We have this guarantee from 
the parties by whom this revelation is made. “He that 
loveth me not keepeth not my saying: and the word 
which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent 
me. . . . The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, 
whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach 
you all things, and bring all things to your remem- 
brance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” (John xiv. 
24,26.) Here is the explicit declaration that the whole 
content of the gospel comes to us through the combined 


testimony of all Persons of the Godhead. The separate 


agency of each has been sufficiently indicated in the 
that of the Son in 
working out the scheme of redemption, and that of the 


preceding portion of this essay 


Spirit in securing an infallible record of the same. The 
Christian accepts both these as a perfect guarantee that 
in the holy Scriptures he has a divine testimony upon 
which to ground his own acceptance of the same. It 


_ is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that this little 


book is not intended to be an apologetic defence of the 
Bible against the attacks of the infidel or the skeptic. 
It is written for the believer alone who accepts the Bible 
as coming from God; only to show the guarantees upon 
which he receives the testimony which it delivers. If 
we are ever to know why the grace revealed in the gospel 


is a sufficient basis upon which to rest our hope of salva- 


tion, it is on the testimony of those who have wrought 


LOZ THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


out the scheme, and who must be allowed to know what 
they meant in it all. 

Should it be urged that the method of salvation 
disclosed is too full of mysteries to be accredited by the 
reason, the reply is that they can be received by faith. 
It. will hardly be questioned that the latter is as truly 
a part of our mental constitution as the former. The 
child believes instinctively all that it is told, until by 
later experience it learns the prevalency of falsehood 
as well as truth. This, however, does not invalidate the 
fact that we naturally accept testimony as the ground 
of belief. Nay, as against the rationalist in this matter, 
it can be shown that all reasoning starts from some pos- 
tulate of faith, and has its conelusion confirmed by a 
final act of faith. In the science of mathematics, where 
the demonstration is most rigid, the first link of the 
chain hangs upon an axiom which is a pure act of faith; 
and the conclusion is rendered certain by a similar con- 
fidence in our own mental powers, which have conducted 
the whole course of reasoning. It will be a most 
ungrateful return, therefore, if, depending first and last 
upon faith for its authentication, reason should impeach 
its authority as a basis of any of our convictions. 

. But more than this; these mysteries themselves are 
in evidence of the truth of the record. What is God 
but a mystery? Nay, the first of all the mysteries is 
his eternal self-existence, his omnipresence, in the very 
mode of his subsistence, as has been already shown. 
Will reason undertake to say that there is no God 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 103 


because it cannot understand him? What, then, will it 
do with matter, in which science 1s disclosing a thousand 
mysteries—unable to tell even what it is? What will 
it do with mind, which philosophy has been struggling 
to explain since men first began to think? If there be 
no God, how came anything else to be? Mystery, there- 
fore, belongs to the sphere in which God moves; and 


_- if there were no mysteries in revelation, it could never 


claim to come from God. In fact, all the mysteries in 
the scheme of grace attest it to be the work of an Infinite 
Being, and thus form a substantive proof of the truth 
‘which reveals it in the sacred Scriptures. Just in this is 


_ found the supreme value of a divine testimony, in that 


it places all truth upon precisely the same level. The 
inexplicable, as well as the simple and plain, are received 


a. with the same ease by the same faith. Nothing in Scrip- 


ture is to be received upon the ground that it is under- 
stood, but upon the ground that it has been revealed. 
All resting upon divine testimony are to be received as 
of equal authority. | 

2. There are fundamental instincts um the very 
structure of our nature, to which the gospel can appeal, 
and by which its truths can be recognized and received. 
Reference is not here made to those original and sub- 
stantive faculties of the soul necessary to man as a 
responsible agent. Since the fall these are fearfully 
debased by sin. The mind has been darkened, the con- 
science debauched, the affections estranged, and the will 
enslaved. Still they exist. Through these our salvation 


104 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


is wrought and in the glorified use of them heaven itself 
is enjoyed. If man was in the beginning created in the 
image of God, he must have been endowed with spiritual 
instincts which should respond to any communication 
made to him. And should a permanent revelation be 
afforded, this must find points of attachment to which 
it shall immediately adhere. It does not require a long 
search to discover these. 

The first to be mentioned is the readiness with which 
the idea of a God is received, and the tenacity with 
which it is held. Incomprehensible as the conception is 
in itself, it is firmly lodged in the mind of the race, and 
can never be eradicated. It is very curious to hear 
an atheist declare, “There is no God,” when the very 
word itself proves that he has the concept of such a 
being; and just to that extent God exists to him. Let 
him say or do what he will, there is no dislodgment of 
the idea from his own consciousness. He may write a 
volume to refute the fact; but the more frequently the 
name is used, or the thought entertained, so much the 
deeper is the eternal truth chiselled upon his mind, 
which is compelled to retain the conception. God is 
simply a necessity of thought; for we cannot think in 
any direction without postulating the divine existence. 
Have we, for example, the notion of cause? Then we 
must run along the chain of cause and effect until we 
find the first cause to which it must be fastened. That 
first cause is God. We speak freely about the finite. 
But how can the finite be defined except by contrast with 


~ 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 105 


the infinite, its opposite pole? But the Infinite is God. 
We talk of the relative in contrast with the absolute. 
But the Absolute is God. Every term which is em- 
ployed in science and philosophy in setting forth their 
conclusions has, at the other end of the line, only God. 
Surely if the Almighty has ever disclosed and main- 
tained his supremacy,-it is in the fact that. no creature 
ean even think without the implication of his being and 
rule. 

Tet us look at this from a different point of view. 
Through the entire range of human history, and under 
all the changing conditions of the race, this recognition 


of God has never been erased. If ever there was a 


universal idea ruling the minds of men, it is the exist- 
ence of an infinite and supreme Being, who holds and 
controls the universe. No people has yet. been discovered 
so sunk in brutish ignorance as not to possess a corre- 
spondingly rude and degrading conception of the deity. 
If, however, in the judgment of travellers any such 
have been discovered, it has been testified that they are 
sunk in such depths of degradation as scarcely to be 
distinguished from wild animals of the forest. All this 
goes to show that the sparks of living fire are there, 
though covered in the ashes beneath which they are 
buried. 

If almost brutish ignorance does not extinguish the 
recognition of God, neither has the universal spread of 
idolatry over the earth. Indeed, it is wonderful how, in 
his overruling power, he has made this idolatry a means 


106 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


of proclaiming his existence and his just demand upon 
the worship of mankind. It so recognizes the need of 
a God that it searches through all nature for suitable 
objects to represent him and bring him near to the wor- 
shiper. It so asserts a controlling providence, that it 
appoints a separate deity for the mountain and the 
stream, for the forest and the lake, for the land and 
the sea, that protection and guidance may be at hand 
everywhere upon the globe. Nay, in its corruption of 
the truth, which still it proclaims, idolatry teaches the 
doctrine of sin in its fastings and penances and pilgrim- 
ages., In its altars, reeking with the blood and smoking 
with the fires of numerous sacrifices, it offers a sad _ 
travesty of that atonement for sin which is revealed in 
the gospel. Evidently, in the whole history of idolatry 
God has imposed a check upon human departure from 
himself, that it may not reach the height of wickedness 
as before the flood. Even in its hideous caricature of 
the truth, and.in its utter corruption of all worship of 
himself, he has strangely compelled idolatry to make 
confession of him and of his grace through all the ages. 

This imperishable recognition of the existence and 
authority of the Divine Being is the source of endless 
comfort and joy to the sincere Christian. To such an 
one he is a God nigh at hand, a very present help in time 
of trouble. But it is a truth for the unconverted to pon- 
der. It is not possible for God to create a being in 
his own image, placing him under the control of law, 
and to allow the transgressor the slightest chance of 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 107 


escape from his presence and power. Such a soul will 
not be able even to think in eternity without feeling the 
pressure of the divine presence. 

A second element in our nature to which the gospel 
directly appeals is the firm persuasion of God’s con- 
versableness with his creatures. The difficulties here are 
“not slight to human reason. On the human side lies 
the fact that our souls are locked up in these bodies of 
flesh, and are dependent upon the organs of sense for 
communication with all that is external. On the divine 
side is a twofold embarrassment: that arising from the 


entire spirituality of his essence, and that from the 


infinite perfection of his attributes. The first of these 


deepens in significance when it is recalled that we are 
strictly forbidden to form any image of him, even in 
our mental conception. The second enlarges when we 
stretch our thought to the infinitude of each single per- 
fection, and seek to gather them into a cluster brilliant 
with a glory worthy of the great Being to whom they 
belong. Yet underlying these obstacles is the inwrought 
conviction that the Divine Being may be approached, 
and that sensible intercourse with him can be main- 
tained. This lays the foundation upon which rests the 
possibility of both a revelation and an incarnation. The 
common sense of mankind in all ages has accepted both 
as true, and every form of religion has been built upon 
both. Great as the mystery may be in either, the fact 
itself has been accepted as the necessary condition of 
all true knowledge, and of all rational worship of God. 


108 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


The silent prayer in the closet and the combined praises 
in the sanctuary rest alike upon the supreme conviction 
of God’s conversableness with his creatures. 

A still sweeter proof of this remains to be consid- 
ered. When conscience, challenged by the law, arraigns 
the sinner before the bar of infinite Justice, what shall 
keep him from sinking in despair under a sense of 
accumulated guilt? Nothing but an ineradicable per- 
suasion of the divine mercy blending with justice in the 
administration of law. The ground of reconciliation 
between these may be only dimly perceived at all. But 
there would seem to be a blind instinct in man feeling 
after God, even in the dark. In Grecian fable, when 
all the gifts of the deity had fled, hope alone remained 
in Pandora’s box. But in the case we have supposed, 
this hope can hang only upon some principle in the 
divine economy in which an accusing conscience may 
take refuge. When, therefore, the Scriptures come to 
the awakened :sinner with the doctrine of atonement and 
pardon, hope finds the basis laid upon which its faint 
expectation may be fulfilled. Two considerations sup- 
port this view. Among the essential attributes of God 
no one of them can overtop or overlap another; and 
we should antecedently expect an equal display of them 
in any revelation made to the creature. In addition 
to this, the dispensation of God towards the human race 
is distinctly intended to disclose to the universe this par- 
ticular attribute of merey—thus revealing his infinite 
love, which underlies and prompts all his acts to his 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 109 


intelligent creatures. This element, therefore, in our 
nature is that to which the gospel immediately appeals, 
and finds its entrance even into the bosom of despair 
with the offer of salvation. 

3. Lhe most difficult truths of the Bible are taken 
mto the experience of the Christian, and are thus 
verified to him. In conviction of sin, for example, the 
basis is laid for the recognition of the whole doctrine 
of redemption. This word implies that the sinner 
cannot be discharged from condemnation until a substi- 
tute shall suffer the penalty in his stead. That substi- 
tute, as we have before seen, cannot be found among be- 
ings who are themselves under law. He must be sought 
in the pavilion of the Godhead, and this draws after 
it the mystery of the Trinity. Then this divine substi- 
tute must also be human in order to redeem man; and 
this necessitates the incarnation, or “God manifest in 
the flesh.” Then follows the covenant of grace between 
the Persons of the Godhead, and the offices to be dis- 
charged by each in executing its provisions. To all this 
_ must be added a vicarious atonement, with its attendant 
mystery of a justifying righteousness, and its imputation 
to the sinner that it may become in law his own. What 
a cluster of scriptural doctrines here presented, inter- 
dependent and interlaced—a perfect solar system of 
_ truth, as marvellous in their orderly arrangement as the 
2 - movements of the planets in their orbit. 

There is still another constellation shining in the 
g _ firmament of divine revelation. In the experience of 


RNC gy THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


pardon, the entire mystery of the new birth in its 
practical import is unveiled. The impartation of 
spiritual life is the necessary antecedent to both repent- 
ance and faith. It has been already shown that spiritual 
life, like natural life, must precede movement and 
action. There can be no turning from sin, with orief 
and hatred, until its true nature has been seen in the 
light of God’s infinite holiness, to which it is opposed. 
Now, until the principle of holiness has been again 
implanted in the human soul, it has no proper concep- 
tion of sin as being entire estrangement from God, its 
primal, and indeed its only, source. Equally so with 
faith as the codrdinate of repentance. Christ must be 
seen in order to be embraced; and to this end the eye 
of the blind must be opened; and if the eye be sealed 
in the blindness of death, life must be restored in order 
to sight. When, therefore, the sinner has through regen- 
eration entered into spiritual life, the whole process of 
sanctification is begun in the long struggle with indwell- 
ing sin, and continues until the final translation to 
heaven. 

Again: in the use of prayer we learn the whole 
secret of intercourse with God; mysterious, in that it is 
maintained in the silence of thought, and most intimate 
when without the intervention of words or symbols of 
any kind. The omniscient Father listens to the breath- 
ing of every emotion, hears the whisper of every sigh, 
and feels the pulse of every thought. There can be no 
communion so close with any creature. God is able to 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 111 


interpret that which is concealed in the depths of our 
consciousness. Our intercourse with him is the more 
confidential, in that he will keep to himself the darkest 
secrets which we entrust to him. The heaviest sorrows, 
which no word is strong enough to bear, he can measure 
by the grace which it is his purpose to impart. Despite, 
: therefore, all the mystery which involves such corre- 
et spondence between earth and heaven, the believer knows 
-, the sweetness and the joy which hourly come from it 
~ to his own soul. 
| Still further, in the hope which sustains him, he 
4 * gathers up all that relates to death, the resurrection and 
| the life to come; and, with all the mysteries which 
intervene, he bridges the chasm between time and 
4 _ eternity. All Christian truth is brought within the 
= range of human sympathy and is tested by experience. 
Thus he swings around the entire circle of Christian 
doctrine; finding in that experience the key fitting into 
the wards of every lock and opening the meaning of 
each one in its turn. 
4. The final ground upon which rests this assurance 
of understanding is the direct influence of the Holy 
Ghost in illuminating the truth which he has msprred. 
| _ The former would seem to follow the latter by logical 
‘ : ‘sequence—certainly it follows by the logic of grace. It 
is the province of this agent to embody the truth in such 
form that he may employ it as an instrument in the 
salvation of men. Food may be provided for the body, 
but the reception and digestion of it are necessary if life 


112 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


is to be sustained. So truth may be spread in abun- 
dance upon the pages of the Bible, but it is only the 
appropriation of it to the wants of the soul that can 
make the babe in Christ grow up to the stature of a 
perfect man inhim. This, then, is made the office of the 
Holy Spirit in the scheme of grace. 

In the preceding portion of this essay this was shown 
to be done in the twofold and reciprocal way, through 
the illumination of the word and the illumination of 
the mind to receive it. They may both be explained 
through a single illustration. The reader has doubtless 
seen business houses in a city with the name of the firm 
indicated in large letters made up of small points, 
obscure and unimpressive in broad daylight: but when 
the ignited gas streams through these the name comes 
out in letters of living fire. So the words of the Bible 
lie cold and dull upon the printed page, until a sudden 
flash of light gleams through the text, disclosing a 
wealth of meaning never seen before. Not a single 
sincere and earnest Christian but has found this to be 
often true in his own experience. Truths new and 
exceedingly precious are continually breaking in upon 
the mind from passages of Scripture, forming often 
distinct stages in the Christian experience, by which 
we mark our progress towards the goal. 

Recurring to the illustration employed above, in the 
midst of that illumination which has been described, 
there might wander around some one unfortunately 
blind. To him the brilliant light would reveal nothing; 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. L113 


and a new power must be invoked restoring sight before 
the strange wonder could be perceived. Thus the Holy 
‘Spirit must open the eyes of the spiritually blind before 
the illuminated word can impart a single beam of 
spiritual truth. It is in this subjective influence upon 
the mind itself of the believer that we can more dis- 
tinetly trace the agency of the Holy Spirit. All progress 
in knowledge depends upon the mental preparation to 


7 receive the truth disclosed. This is preéminently true 


in the reception of spiritual truth; for “the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spinit ane ge ore CN 
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually 


corned.” (1 Cor. ii. 14.) The Spirit, for example, 


removes the prejudice and misapprehensions which go 
often becloud the mind of a true believer. Then there 
is a sensible quickening of the mental perception of 


S truth hitherto concealed. In addition, there is an 


enlargement of Christian experience, sometimes sudden, 

but often gradual, preparing it for the disclosures yet 
tobe made. “TI have yet many things to say unto you,” 
_ said our Lord to his disciples, “but ye cannot bear them 
now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, 
he will guide you into all truth.” (John xvi, Po 
Still further, there is given consciously to the Christian 
the power of appropriating the truth when it is 
_ revealed, in its nature and effect. analogous to that act 
‘of faith in which he first received: and appropriated 


_ Christ as his personal Saviour. The truth, like food, is 


thus assimilated so as to enter into the bone and muscle, 


114 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


rendering the man of God valiant and strong in every 
emergency of the Christian life. Last of all in these 
progressive experiences there 1s the direct sealing of the 
truth upon the conscience and heart of the believer; and 
through this demonstration of the Spirit the truth 
receives its final attestation. In all this blessed agency, 
which has been so briefly sketched, all God’s children 
stand upon an equal footing. However they may differ 
in general scholarship or in mental acumen, they are 
alike under the guidance of the Spirit of God. Our 
Lord himself testifies that it is through the truth, im the 
knowledge and application of it, that the sanctification 
of the believer is accomplished. In his prayer addressed 
to the Father, he offers this petition for his disciples : 
“Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.” 
(John xvii. 17.) The inspired apostle also describes 
those who are in Christ as “being born again, not of 
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of 
God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1 Peter 
i. 23.) Thus it happens that many a humble disciple, 
with only -the Scriptures in his hand, may have a 
truer knowledge of God and of his will than all the 
generations of men who are skilled alone in the wisdom 
of this world. This, too, is in accordance with the 
promise of the Saviour: “Tt is written in the prophets, 
And they shall be all taught of God.” (John vi. 45.) 
Gathering up all that has been written in this chap- 
ter, the believer’s assured knowledge may be considered 
to rest upon these four pillars: a divine testimony given 


an, Recig 24 ip, 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. 115 


in an inspired record, the instincts planted in man’s 
nature as the sockets in which the gospel may find its 
first lodgment, the verification of the truth in Christian 
experience, and the continuous agency of the Holy 
Spirit in disclosing and applying the truth. It should 
be recognized, however, that all this does not infer the 
Christian’s infallibility in the interpretation of Serip- 
ture. There is room for variation of opinion in constru- 
ing the naked text itself, especially as first given in a 
foreign dialect. There are also the prepossessions of 
early education, giving an unsuspected bias which may 
warp the judgment. In addition to these external dan- 
gers and others which might be mentioned, there is the 
transcendental character of the truths themselyes— 
involving mysteries utterly beyond finite comprehension, 
except as ultimate facts received upon testimony alone. 
Allied, too, as these truths must be in forming a com- 
plete system, they are not equally essential to the salva- 
tion of the soul. Often recondite and regarded by some 
as mere abstractions, their pretermission may impair 
the symmetry of Christian character without invali- 
dating the hope of a saving interest in Christ. There 
may be truths necessary to the integrity of the system of 
grace which yet may not be essential to the salvation 
of the soul. 

The assurance of understanding which the Scrip- 
tures hold out to the believer to seek and to obtain is a 
grace of the Spirit, and it relates to all that one must 
know in order to be a child of God. These lie at the 


116 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


foundation of Christian hope and experience. They 
are truths which all true Christians unite in receiving 
and in confessing before the world. It is in this inward 
acceptance of, and building upon, the scheme of grace 
that we find the absolute unity of the true church of 
God on earth and in heaven. With all the wrangling 
upon topics that lie in the outer circles of revealed truth, 
there is but one Lord, one faith and one baptism (of 
the Spirit) with all those who are the children of God. 
All such in every age know the truth with greater or less 
assurance of understanding, according as they have been 
taught by the Spirit in their advancing experience. 
Perhaps if all Christians would depend less upon their 
own processes of logic, and more upon the demonstration 
of the Spirit, they would comprehend still better “what 
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and 
know the love of God, which passeth knowledge.” (ph. 
ities hele AS, 

It is doubly sad that any Christian should be content 
to rest in vague and uncertain notions about the scheme 
of grace, both because it is unnecessary and because it 
leaves the soul in a state of perplexity and doubt as to 
its true relations to God. If there is a way to be saved, 
we ought to know and to understand its provisions. One 
must first know whether reconciliation with God is possi- 
ble in order to avail himself of it, and then he must 
know the terms upon which it is offered before he can 
aecept them. Thus while the assurance of under- 
standing is not salvation in itself, it is the path which 


BG ed lil ib als Sakata UME) 


THE ASSURANCE OF UNDERSTANDING. a iS iy 


opens to it. But thrice blessed are they who can say, 
“We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given 
us an understanding that we may know him that is true; 
and we are in him that is true, even in his Son, Jesus 
Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 
Vv. 20.) 


CHAPTER II. 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 


“Tet us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of 
faith.’—-HEBREWS x. 22. 


HE subject of the preceding chapter was “the full 
assurance of understanding,” as the full convic- 
tion that we have a clear spiritual perception of the 
meaning of holy Scripture; not comprehending, of 
course, its mysteries, but understanding them as facts 
distinctly revealed. The topic now to be discussed is 
the full assurance of faith, which may be defined as 
the full unswerving conviction of the reality and truth 
of all that the Scriptures reveal, embracing it with entire 
acquiescence and satisfaction of soul, and acting upon 
it as each particular truth may require. The statement 
is made thus general to cover every form of truth and 
every corresponding phase of the faith—in obeying com- 
mands, trembling under divine threatenings, embracing 
the promises. This is a step taken in advance of the 
preceding; that insisted upon assured perception of the 
meaning of Scripture; this, upon the hearty reception 
and embrace of what is there revealed. 
It is well to clear up a misunderstanding of terms 
at the outset. The assurance of faith, properly under- 
stood, is not the assurance of our personal salvation, 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 119 


which is rather the assurance of hope. The two are 
easily confounded, partly because they are not, always 
distinguished by those who treat of these topics; partly 
because the assurance of faith enters as an element into 
that of hope; and partly because the word assurance, 
when used alone, is generally interpreted as being the 
certainty of being in a state of grace. 

The following testimonies will show the scriptural 
warrant for this truth: “Without faith it is impossible 
to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe 
that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek him.” (Heb. xi. 6.) “Let him ask in faith, 
nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave 
of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed.” (James 
1. 6.) “I will therefore that men pray every where, 
lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” 
(1 Tim. ii. 8.) “Our gospel came not unto you in word 
only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in 
much assurance.” (1 Thes. i. 5.) With our definition 
of the term before us, let us see upon what grounds this 
_ assurance of faith may be affirmed. 

1. Lhe exercise of faith rs involved in the fact of 
probation itself, both of law and of grace. Man, created 
in righteousness and holiness, was placed under law for 
the trial of his integrity. He must decide once for all 
whether obedience to the divine will shall be the regula- 
tive principle of his life. The test employed for this 
purpose was a single act, easy of performance; an act, 
too, which had in itself no moral significance, that it 


120 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


might turn alone upon the divine will. There was no 


more sin in eating the fruit of one tree in the garden 


than in eating of any other tree. The sin consisted 
simply in disobeying God’s express command. Whether 
we apply to this transaction the word covenant or not, 
there was a distinct alternative presented to our first 
parent. A plain command was laid upon him. Upon 
his compliance with this, certain privileges would be 
conferred; to disobedience certain penalties were 
annexed. What guarantee, now, did Adam have for all 
this? Nothing beyond the simple word of his Maker. 
Upon belief or disbelief of this his desty must turn. 
This becomes plain from the next step in the history. 
The tempter appears upon the scene with a counter 
declaration, “Ye shall not die: for God doth know that 
in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, 
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 
iii. 4, 5.) Here, then, are two opposing testimonies ; 
which shall the man believe? The narrative goes on to 
say, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good _ 
for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a 
tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit 
thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband 
with her; and he did eat.”’ (Gen. iii. 6.) From that 
moment the fate of the transgressor was sealed and his 
probation under law ceased. The whole matter plainly 
turned upon his refusal to believe the declaration of © 
Jehovah, which had been made to him in the most 
explicit language. 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. oe: 


It has pleased God, however, to reveal a dispensation 
of mercy. His infinite wisdom has devised and _ his 
infinite power has executed a scheme of grace, upon 
which a free and full offer of salvation is made to every 
sinner who will accept the terms. When, therefore, any 
of our unhappy race is brought to a sense of his guilt 
and desires reconciliation with God, what is the first 
thing to be done? What, in fact, do we find is done 
on the part of God at this particular juncture—the 
critical moment, as we may suppose, in which the crea- 
ture’s destiny is to be determined? We may conceive 
it as though God actually brought the sinner to the foot 
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and addressed 
him thus: “Just here sin began on earth through man’s 
refusal to believe my word. At the very spot where this 
great wrong was committed, I require you to retract 
the same. Your first father fell through unbelief. You 
can only be saved through a clear and abiding faith in 
the offer of salvation which I make to you.” Does not 
the logic of the situation require this? Does not the 
honor of his name demand that the foul blot cast upon 
his integrity in the fall shall be repaired in the redemp- 
tion from the fall? Even amongst men, the last insult 
which can be endured is to have one’s veracity impugned. 
Yet in all generations this insult has been renewed in 
man’s disregard of God’s testimony in the Scriptures 
concerning sin. Does not the reader’s sense of justice 
acquiesce in the decision that God must require faith 


in his word in order to salvation ? 


122 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


There is, however, a view of wider sweep than this. 
We are placed by the Creator in a world which can be — 
known only through the five senses of the body. These 
not only convey impressions from the outer world, but 
verify and seal it as objective and real: as when, against 
all the whimsies of the idealist, the sight of a tree is 
accompanied with an irrepressible conviction that it has 
a substantive existence of its own. Hence Isaac Taylor 
calls the body an organ of the soul, and the senses open 
gateways by which the soul goes forth and takes posses- 
sion of a world foreign to itself. Now, if God gives us 
five senses to recognize the world of matter, shall he give 
us no faculty by which to discover that of spirit? There 
are pauses in life when the soul is locked up within 
itself to learn that it belongs to a world that is akin to 
its own nature. God is a spirit, and all the revelations 
of his purposes and of his being lift us above sense into 
a sphere that is spiritual. As this can be known to us 
only through testimony, this demands the existence of 
faith as an essential element of our nature. It will not 
be necessary to enlarge upon this, as in the preceding 
chapter faith has been shown to be the primary. basis 
upon which all our mental and moral processes must 
rest. This carries with it the conclusion that im every 
dispensation of God towards man, faith in his word must 
enter as a necessary element and condition. 

2. The truths of religion are disclosed to faith, so 
as to become the foundation of duty and of worship. 
The argument presented above is one simply of analogy ; 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 15 


that if we possess external organs by which to recognize 
and explore the material world, there should be some 
internal sense through which we may communicate with 
the world that is spiritual. By what name shall this 
faculty or power be designated? Shall it be the faculty 
of reason? Let us suppose a revelation to be given, 
making known the facts of God’s existence and of the 
relation in which he stands to us as law-giver and ruler; 
can reason explain or expound these to us? Has she 
even the language in which to do it? What can she do 
more than simply to hand back to us the facts themselves 
just as she herself received them? ‘Take, for example, 
the least challenged of the divine attributes, omniscience 
and omnipresence. Can reason tell us the method by 
which God comes to his knowledge? Does he learn by 
experience, or through any course of inductive reason- 
ing? Does he feel his way, as we do, step by step along 
a chain of premises to a distant conclusion? In the 
beautiful language of Charnock, “God sees all things 
that may be in the glass of his power, and all things that 
shall be in the glass of his will.” But who can explain 
this mysterious consciousness that can hold in its eternal 
grasp the innumerable contingencies that make up the 
history of the universe? Equally so with the omnipres- 
ence of God. What explanation does reason give of this 
attribute? What is the manner of God’s presence any- 
where? Is it by change of place, or is it by diffusion 
through space? These impertinent questions serve at 
least to show that we can enter into no explanation of 


1294. THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


the divine perfections without materializing him, and 


thus cancelling the fundamental conception of him as 


pure spirit. 

What we need is not the power to. understand, but 
the power to feel and to embrace. It is not the explana- 
tion of that which is shrouded in mystery that we need ; 
but it is certitude of the truth in its reality and its 
actual appropriation to practical ends. The truth must 
not only be known, but it must be recognized in its trans- 
forming and controlling influence over the character and 
life. What is needed is the power of spiritual digestion, 
analogous to that of the body, by which the truth 
received shall be distributed to all the constituent 
faculties of the soul, and be duly assimilated to each. 
This spiritual apprehension and appropriation of 
revealed truth is what we understand by the word faith, 
as will appear by recurrence to the definition given of 
it at the opening of this chapter—that it is the full 
unswerving conviction of the reality and truth of all 
that the Scriptures reveal, embracing it with entire 
acquiescence and satisfaction of soul. Let us test this 
in a concrete case. It is said above that religious truth 
is the foundation of duty and worship. Every act 
should therefore be performed under a sense of the 
divine presence and authority. Is this true of uncon- 
verted men? Even the most moral and upright either ~ 
perform their various duties mechanically through 
obedience to custom or from worldly considerations 
approved by their judgment. God is not present to their 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 125 


thought, and their course of life cannot be described 
as a life of obedience to his will. In order to this there 
must be the power to feel habitually the presence of God 
and to act under its controlling influence. So, too, with 
reference to worship. How can we pray to a God who 
is afar off? Is not this the difficulty with the believer 
himself in his seasons of spiritual darkness? He tries 
to pray, but his words are spoken into the air, and not 
into the ear of a confiding friend. There is a feeling of 
estrangement from God in place of that sweet com- 
munion which he had been accustomed to enjoy. An 
habitual sense of the divine presence is required in 
order to obedience and worship alike; and the conscious 
realization of this is embraced in the word faith. 

If, now, these truths are to be verified as certain, 
rather than conjectural, do the Scriptures support us 
in assigning this function to faith? We have what may 
be termed a definition of faith in these words, ‘Faith 
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen.” (Heb. xi. 1.) Here is distinctly 
affirmed the actualizing power of true faith, through 
which abstract propositions floating in the air become 
the convictions which rule the conscience and the heart. 
It is, says the apostle, “the substance of things hoped 
for”—giving body and form to what otherwise would 
remain shadowy and dim. Now hope, as we shall see 
in the following chapter, is the union of expectation and 
desire for things which are not in actual possession. 
They must, however, be real to us in order to be desired, 


126 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


and the conviction of this reality is produced through 


faith, which is the actualization of what is future. So, — 


again, it is “the evidence of things not seen.” By a 


profoundly spiritual apprehension of them through the 


testimony of God, there is an actual seizure of them in 


their felt reality. This is not the place in which to 
explain the agency by which this secret power is wrought 
in the soul. At present we are only concerned with the 
fact itself, which is the conviction of reality produced 
through the divinely implanted principle of faith which 
tests and verifies it all. 

3. The appropriating power of faith is conspicuously 
seen in the sinner’s acceptance of Christ as a personal 
Saviour. The work of redemption, as shown in the pre- 
ceding chapter, gathers around it a cluster of doctrines, 
each requiring to be received as an integer of the whole. 
It is not necessary to insist further upon the certifying 
of these in order to their acceptance. For the exact 
pivot of the sinner’s salvation is the personal interest 


he has in the redemption itself. The very structure of: 
the scheme requires that he shall be integrated with 


Christ, so as to be one with him in the eye of the law. 
Let this point be put beyond dispute. In the scheme 


of grace God has appointed his incarnate Son to be the 


only mediator between the sinner and himself. All the 
conditions being fulfilled necessary to meet the claims 
of justice and holiness, ‘God now is in Christ recon- 
ciling the world unto himself,” offering complete salva- 
tion to all who will meet him in Christ. He can recog- 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 12% 


nize the sinner nowhere else than in the Mediator, by 
whom all the claims of law have been satisfied. On the 
other hand, to whom can the sinner go, but to him who 
has borne for him the penalty, and has provided the 
only righteousness in which he can be just before God 4 
Only to him can he repair in whom the spiritual life 
is stored which he has redeemed; and in whom, as his 
sponsor, lies the only hope of final blessedness before 
the presence of the throne in the world of glory. The 
very nature of the scheme requires that the estranged 
parties shall meet for perfect reconciliation only in him 
by whom the salvation has been wrought; and that, 
being in him, they never afterward can be disjoined. 
What a mighty coalition is this between the infinite 
God and the redeemed sinner; and how wonderful the 
nature of the tie by which they both are united to the 
Mediator! On the part of Jehovah this connection is 
through a veritable incarnation on the one hand, and 
by covenant stipulation on the other. In the case of the 
saved sinner it is through a spiritual birth on the one 
hand, and through a divinely inspired faith on the other. 
Under what mysterious agencies are the two parties 
brought together, who were before separated as far as 
death is from life! All this goes very far in accentuat- 
ing the nature and power of this principle of faith, by 
which eternal life is secured to a soul before lost in sin 
and exposed to the second death. It is such a power 
as can spring only from life—and a life divinely 
infused, as the bond of union never to be broken while 


128 TILE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


eternity endures. Such is the nature and office of that 
faith which, springing from the life infused by the — 
Spirit, lays hold upon the life secured by the Son, and 
lifts the believer at length to the glory which it enjoys 
with the Father forever above. 

There is another view under which the office of faith 
should be emphasized. It is that in the appropriating 
act of faith, the agency and responsibility of man as a 
being under law is most fully recognized. Ever since 
the days of Paul it has been reiterated against the gospel 
that it discharges man from all legal responsibility in 
grounding the sinner’s justification before God upon the 
righteousness of another rather than his own. This 
accusation the Apostle refutes, showing it to be a contra- 
diction in terms: “Shall we continue in sin, that grace 
may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are 
dead to sin, live any longer therein?’ (Rom. vi. 1, 2.) 
For “as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory 
of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness 
of life’ (vs. 4). This long-standing reproach against the 
gospel finds its complete refutation in the very act of 
faith upon which it is founded. In the acceptance of 
Christ’s righteousness instead of his own, the believer 
acknowledges that subjection to the law of God from 
which no creature can be exempt. If the sinner is to be 
saved by his own righteousness, his doom is forever 
sealed. The righteousness which the law originally 
required and must ever demand of the creature is per- 
fect obedience to the divine will—an obedience uninter- 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. 129 


rupted and without a flaw from first to last. No sinner 
has such a righteousness before God; and, if saved at 
all, it must be through a righteousness not inherent, but 
imputed. When, therefore, in the scheme of grace a 
substitute renders such a perfect righteousness on the 
sinner’s behalf, the acceptance of it by him is a distinct 
recognition of the law’s original and proper demand. 
It is, moreover, not only a recognition, but also a clear 
fulfilment of the obligation imposed. Through the same 
act of the will which would have been required in work- 
ing out a righteousness, he has accepted and made his 
own the obedience and righteousness of another. Thus 
his own sense of personal responsibility is fully met, 
and the duty which it required is completely discharged. 
In all this we have the direct testimony of holy Serip- 
ture. Thus the apostle testifies against his own people, 
the Jews: “They, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, 
and going about to establish their own righteousness, 
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness 
of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteous- 
ness to every one that believeth.” (Rom. x. 3,4.) Still 
more largely he says, in another place: “Being justified 
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in 
Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to bé a propitia- 
tion through faith in his blood, to declare his righteous- 
ness for the remission of sins that are past, through the 
forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his 
righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier 
of him that believeth in Jesus.” (See Rom. iii. 24-26.) 


130 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


Not only so, but this same law which demanded a 
perfect fulfilment is continued in its original force; and 
is being still obeyed in the presentation by the believer 
of the imputed righteousness of his Lord and Head. It 
is not, indeed, now the ground of his justification ; but 
it is a free obedience of the law of grace, as it is the law 
of God in Christ. In all this appropriation of Christ 
and of his righteousness, the reality and sufficiency of 
the atonement for sin must be rendered antecedently 
certain to the believer; and thus the actualizing power 
of faith is disclosed at every stage in the whole process 
of justification. 

4. This actualizing power of faith comes alone 
through the agency of the Holy Spirit. It has been 
impossible to avoid anticipating this in what has been 
already written. But the topic is of such supreme im- 
portance that it demands a separate consideration. Itis 
the special function of the Spirit to apply the redemp- 
tion which Christ has accomplished. Hence the subordi- 
nation in office between the two, to which our Lord 
refers: “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come to 
you; but if I depart I will send him unto you.” (John 
xvi. 7.) Again he says: “I will pray the Father, and he 
will send the Comforter, that he may abide with you for- 
ever.” (John xiv. 16.) This marks the Spirit’s office 
as the permanent indwelling agent, who shall carry 
forward in the soul of the believer the work of grace 
till it is complete in glory. For, says the Redeemer, 
“Fe shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine and 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. a yi § 


shall show it unto you.” (John xvi. 14.) In the first 
part of this essay, when dwelling upon fellowship with 
the Spirit, he was described as the secret and mighty 
power of God in the human soul—dealing with it as 
spirit only can deal with spirit. As freely as the wind 
moves through the most complex machinery, so he moves 
through all the faculties of man’s soul, and as little 
impinging upon their freedom of action. Yet with all 
this, he infuses a silent influence which causes each 
power to move in the direction of his controlling will. 
This amazing mystery, uniting freedom and control in 
every act, finds its solution in a new life which the Holy 
Spirit breathes into the soul of man. The principle of 
holiness breaks the power of reigning sin and directs 
anew the faculties of the soul. The mind perceives truth 
under the new light which is shed upon it; the con- 
science renders its judgments under a new code which 
it accepts; the heart turns to a new love which attracts 
it; and the will, polarized afresh, impels in another 
course than before. The man is free in all his acts, 
which obey simply the law of a new nature begotten 
within him. It is this prevailing spiritual life, im- 
planted and constantly invigorated by the indwelling 
Spirit of God, which actuates the faith and gives it both 
the certifying and the appropriating power heretofore 
described. If we do not know how all this is done, it 
is because we do not know how life acts upon and 
through all the organs which it is expected to control. 
But we know at least this, that the Spirit uses the truth 


132 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


as his only instrument in all his operations within the 
believer. It is through this he informs the understand- 
ing, directs the conscience, sways the affections and con- 
trols the will. In the whole process of conversion and 
sanctification he deals with man as a moral and respon- 
sible being. This view will be strengthened if we 
emphasize the fact that the Spirit’s agency 1s felt alike 
through all the powers of the human soul. If it were 
confined to one of these alone, error might creep in 
through some other faculty and vitiate the whole. But 
with an influence pervading alike all the faculties in 
man, the aberration which might occur in one would be 
corrected by the truth in another. Through the inter- 
action of all these, we have the same kind of verification 
which we enjoy in science when engaged in exploring 
the hidden operations of nature. In the Spirit’s work 
we have the additional security that his entire agency 
is brought within the range of our conscious experl- 
ence—doubly certifying to us our convictions of truth 
as found in the gospel of Christ. 

There are degrees in faith which do not rise to this 
complete assurance. Many causes contribute to this. 
There are timid souls, always distrustful of themselves 
and suspicious of danger, who instinctively draw back 
from a firm grasp of the promises. There are also 
desponding persons who, by constitutional temperament, 
live always in gloom and darkness of spirit. Both these 
classes are from the outset called to struggle with the 
difficulties of a natural disposition. Again, there are 


THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH. a baps 


others, emancipated from these troubles, who are sud- 
denly plunged into heavy trials and sorrows in the 
administration of God’s general providence. Over- 
whelmed by the suddenness of the shock, they waver for 
a time in that constancy of faith which they ordinarily © 
preserve. Others, under the discipline of grace, are 
buffeted by the assaults of the adversary; and in the 
confusion of the conflict lose sight of the promise of 
being kept by the power of God unto final salvation 
(1 Peter i. 5). More sadly than all these supposed cases, 
many Christians become overtaken by a worldly spirit 
that their piety becomes chilled; and thus they grieve 
away from them that blessed Spirit who is the source of 
all their comfort and strength. Nevertheless, it is the 
privilege of all God’s children to enjoy a complete assur- 
ance of faith. By this, let it be understood, is meant 
not that we are assured of our personal salvation; but 
only that there is an unswerving conviction of the truth 
of all that God reveals in his word, whether we can 
immediately apply it to our comfort or not. Indeed, our 
faith may be the most pleasing to our Heavunly Father 
when, without sensible comfort, there is nothing but this 
faith to which we can cling. In order to assurance, it is 
important that we should so continue in the exercise 
of the principle of faith that these single acts shall 
erystallize into the permanent and controlling habit of 
the soul. A weak faith is that which is vacillating and 
inconstant; a strong faith is that which abides in the 
assurance of God’s truth. 


CHAPTER ITI. 


THE ASSURANCE OF HOPE. 


“Show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the 
end.”—HEBREWS vi. 11. 


HE attention of the reader is now called to the 
last subject under discussion in this essay, the 
assurance of hope. It may be well, therefore, to present 
anew the distinction between the three kinds of assur- 
ance. ‘The assurance of understanding has been defined 
as the clear and comforting persuasion that we rightly 
interpret the principles of grace as revealed in the 
gospel. That of faith is a full conviction of the reality 
and truth of this grace, whereby we rest upon it with 
entire confidence. That of hope is the fixed and well- 
grounded persuasion that we, as individuals, are 
accepted in Christ and shall never come into condemna- 
tion, but will inherit eternal life. We grapple, then, at 
the outset with the proposition itself, and ask on what 
grounds such an assurance can be shown to be attainable 
on earth. 

1. Hope is undoubtedly an elementary principle m 
our rational nature. It may be compared with the 
instinct of animal life, which we share in common with 
the brute creation. We daily observe persons under 
great and continuous suffering, who in the midst of it 


THE ASSURANCE OF HOPE. 135 


all cling tenaciously to life. It is undoubtedly a wise 
provision; for without it men under temporary distress 
would rush uncalled into their Maker’s presence, and 
suicide would become a frequent crime. We may 
analogically describe hope as a rational instinct planted 
in our mental and moral constitution for equally wise 
ends. We are able to endure heavy disappointments 
and trials under the hope that a change will take place 
for the better, even when no rational ground for that 
hope appears. It is, to use a common phrase, hoping 
against hope. Yet it is sufficient to prevent rashness in 
the day of evil, and to keep us afloat in the wreck of 
earthly fortunes. 

If this exposition be correct, why should not this 
hope be more conspicuously exercised in the sphere of 
religion than in matters that are earthly? The Chris- 
tian believes that nothing happens in his lot by chance 
or accident. He is persuaded that God in his general 
providence orders all the affairs of men. But immeas- 
urably beyond this he believes that, under a gracious 
covenant, these earthly trials are but.a fatherly dis- 
cipline preparing him for an inheritance of glory in the 
world to come. Hope has thus a wide sweep through all 
the promises of the gospel, bearing him up and carrying 
him through a sea of troubles which shall have their 
recompense hereafter. In this principle of hope we have 
a natural basis upon which we may rest the believer’s 
_ comforting assurance of his personal salvation. 

2. If salvation depends upon our coming to Christ, 


136 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


the evidence of our acceptance of him would seem to be 
necessary. This brings up anew the appropriating 
power of faith, which was fully discussed in the pre- 
ceding chapter. The believer may have the testimony 
of his own consciousness that, in obedience to the call 
of the gospel, he expects to be saved only through Christ 
Jesus as his Redeemer, and thus far he accepts him. 
But this brings him no immediate comfort until he has 
the evidence of his own acceptance before God. This 
is furnished only when a sense of pardon is sealed upon 
his conscience by the Holy Spirit. What is this, but 
to affirm what is equally true of the Christian in all 
the stages of his experience? There are, alas! only too 
many seasons of spiritual darkness, when the child of 
God is without any present sense of his Father’s love. 
There remains still the principle of faith, which holds 
to Christ as the only possible Saviour, but the comfort 
of present acceptance with God is withheld. The 
exemplification of this distinction is found in the dis- 
cipline of our earthly homes. A parent does not cease 
to love his child, even though the manifestation of that 
love may be withdrawn. Nor does the child lose con- 
fidence in the parent’s protection and care, though now 
sore in heart under that parent’s displeasure. So the 
Christian does not lose his confidence in God’s love to 
him as his child, but has no comfort whilst debarred 
the joy of filial intercourse. This will suffice to prove 
what is affirmed above: that in our first coming to 
Christ there is needed the confirming seal of our pardon 


x a gs 
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a ee eae 
ee ay 


THE ASSURANCE OF HOPE. 137 


and acceptance before God. Thus what is needed at the 
beginning for the confirmation of our faith is seen to be 
necessary for the confirmation of our hope; and this 
hope will be graduated through the whole after experi- 
ence, according to the degrees of faith which the believer 
may attain. 

3. This doctrine of an assured hope rests so entirely 
- upon the testimony of Scripture that the following cita- 
tions are adduced under different forms of presentation. 
First of all, those which directly affirm it. Thus we 
have hope defined in its relation to what is future in 
our salvation: “We are saved by hope: but hope that 
is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth 
hu yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, 
then do we with patience wait for it.” (Rom. villi. 24, 
25.) The same apostle dwells upon the continual 
increase of hope, ““Now the God of hope fill you with 
all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in - 
hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” (Rom. 
xv. 13.) Again, “We through the Spirit wait for the 
hope of righteousness by faith.” (Gal. v. 5.) “By two 
immutable things, in which it was impossible for God 
to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled 
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: 
which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure 
and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the 
veil.” (Heb. vi. 18,19.) The Apostle John, ihe beloved 
disciple, might be expected to dwell fondly upon this 
theme. Thus he says, ‘“‘Whoso keepeth his word, in him 


138 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we 
that we are in him.” (1 John ii. 5.) “We know that 
we have passed from death unto life, because we love 
the brethren.” (1 John ii. 14.) “These things have I 


written unto you that believe on the name of the Son_ 


of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” 
(1 John v. 138.) 

Again, we have hope presented in its connection with 
the believer’s sanctification. Thus, “Examine your- 
selves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. 
Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is 
in you, except ye be reprobates?’ (2 Cor. xiii. 5.) 
“Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to 
the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at 
the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter i.13.) “Sane 
tify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always 
to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason 
of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” 
(1 Peter iii. 15:) “Give diligence to make your calling 
and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall 
never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto 
you abundantly unto the everlasting kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter i. 10, 11.) 

Still further there are passages of Scripture which 
afford personal examples of this hope. Thus Paul 
declares of himself, “I know whom I have believed, and 
am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have 
committed unto him against that day.” (2 Tim. i. 12.) 


“Henceforth there is laid up.for me a crown of right- 


Po ill 


a oN eae 


THE ASSURANCE OF HOPE. 139 


eousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give 
me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them 
also that love his appearing.” (2 Tim. iv. 8.) The 
Apostle Peter also describes this as the privilege of all 
believers: ‘“‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy 
hath begotten us again unto a lively (or living) hope 
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 
“Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now 
ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy 
unspeakable and full of glory.” (1 Peter i. 3, 8.) 
These citations are but a tithe of what might be adduced : 
for one is surprised to discover how the Scriptures 
abound with testimonies to the reality of this hope in 
all of its different forms in Christian experience. Those 
presented above are left in bulk to make their combined 
impression upon the mind. 

4. The spiritual graces wrought into the character 
and life of the belrever afford additional basis for an 
assured hope. They are as follows: “Love, joy, peace, 
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
perance: against such there is no law.” (Gal. v. 22, 
23.) These virtues are gathered into a cluster; each 
being separate and distinct, yet all so interwoven as to 
make a necessary whole. They form Christian char- 
acter: and may not irreverently be likened to the per- 
fections of the Most High; each of which has its indi- 
vidual place, yet all blending into that holiness which is 


the glory of the divine character. 


140 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


A slight analysis of these virtues will show how com- 
pletely they enter into the Christian life. The first 
three are “love, joy, peace,” describing the inward 
affections and emotions of a renewed soul. Love is men- 
tioned first as the abiding force which pervades the 
believer’s life. Peace is the serene atmosphere which 
he breathes from conscious reconciliation with God. Joy 
is the highest exhilaration of the human spirit in the 
moments of closest communion with Jehovah. Then 
follow in the second class “longsuffering, gentleness, 
goodness;” which describe the Christian’s attitude 
towards the world without—patient under injuries, 
gentle towards all men, and abounding in acts of 
universal kindness. The last trio, “faith, meekness, 
temperance,” present the final and fixed habit in which 
Christian character crystallizes and is confirmed to the 
end. Faith clings to the testimony of the divine word. 
Meekness is employed in Scripture almost technically 
to depict ihe humility, self-surrender and submission 
of the soul to God. Temperance is used in its broad 
sense of self-control and mastery over all the lusts and 
passions of the flesh. As these eraces are all of them 
fruits of the Spirit, each in its turn furnishes evidence 
that the possessor is in a state of salvation; and when 
all of them are combined the evidence is cumulative and 
overwhelming. Indeed, in those moments when the 
Christian is in conscious possession of this evidence, 
either single or collective, it is searcely possible for him 
to doubt the genuineness of his hope in Christ. This 


THE ASSURANCE OF HOPE. TAL 


evidence becomes the brighter when he compares these 
Christian traits with those of the unconverted world 
around him. The contrast between the two evinces 
plainly the nature of the spiritual life which he now 
leads by faith in Christ Jesus his Lord. 

5. The witness of the Spirit to his own work within 
the soul is the final ground on whach to rest the assur- 
ance of hope. In the chapter upon the fellowship with 
the Holy Spirit, his whole agency came necessarily into 
-view. Nothing remains in this connection but to apply 
all that has been discussed to the believer’s realization 
of his interest in Christ. Suffice it to say, that in the 
impartation and invigoration of the spiritual life is laid 
the foundation of Christian faith and hope alike. In 
every virtue which he develops in the believer’s life his 
testimony is borne to the fact that we are truly the chil- 
dren of God. In the continued sealing of pardon upon 
the conscience through all the shades of Christian expe- 
rience the same testimony is borne. In the sensible 
communion with God in all his acts of worship, both 
private and public, this witness of the Spirit is con- 
tinually renewed. This restatement is made without 
expansion that the reader may gather together the 
various ways in which this testimony of the Spirit is 
given as to the reality of our Christian hope. “The 
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are 
the children of God.” (Rom. viii. 16.) “In whom also 
. after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy 
Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance 


TAY THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto 
the praise of his glory.” (Eph. i. 13, 14.) 

The reason why so much obscurity rests in many 
minds upon this doctrine of assurance is this—that few 
persons discriminate between temporary and permanent 
assurance. In our moments of high Christian enjoy- 
ment it is not possible to doubt our interest in Christ. 
Just in those moments the evidence of the fact is com- 
plete in the double testimony of our own consciousness 
and that of the Holy Spirit. The misfortune is that 
these moments are fleeting; and with them the convic- 
tion of our salvation vanishes. It is an intermittent 
assurance only that most. Christians enjoy. In most 
cases, when the question is asked whether one is assured 
of his interest in Christ, ‘the answer is returned 
promptly in ihe negative. His mind is fastened upon 
assurance of hope as the permanent habit of the soul; 
and he overlooks the fact that he has a hundred times 
been able to say with the apostle, “I know whom I have 
believed.” It would clear up a good deal of mist which 
hangs around this particular truth to remember that 
no habit can be acquired without frequent reiteration 
of the single act. In the nature of the case, this hope 
must be intermittent in its manifestation, in order to 
its accretion into the final and fixed posture of the soul. 
As a fountain would cease to be even intermittent, 
except for the gush of the concealed waters in the womb 
of the earth; so, but for the real grace within the soul 
of the believer, there would be neither the intermittent 


THE ASSURANCE OF HOPE. Ae 


nor the permanent flow of the indwelling hope always 
springing up in every renewed soul. 

An abiding assurance of hope is undoubtedly the 
privilege of all believers. Yet perhaps there are timid 
souls who shrink from its attainment upon very mis- 
taken grounds. Some, for example, fear to acknowledge 
it lest it should seem to betray an ostentatious and self- 
righteous spirit; forgetting that it is the very essence 
of self-righteousness to assume the direction and control 
of their own spiritual life. Others, again, are afraid that 
such a feeling of security would lull them into negli- 
gence as to further duty and effort. A third class may 
be alarmed lest they should be betrayed into some 
fanatical delusion, the mere travesty of the hope in 
question. It may be well to enlarge a little upon this 
last point. Through the “deceitfulness of sin” divine 
truth is often changed into a lie; and this in exact pro- 
portion to its importance in the salvation of the soul. 
Satan is never so dangerous a foe as when he poses 
as an angel of light, and becomes the seeming advocate 
of truth. There is, however, a threefold protection 
against the danger of confounding a religious hope with 
any fanatical distortion of it. First, by bringing both 
to the word of God as revealed in the Scriptures. “To 
the law and to the testimony: if they speak not accord- 
ing to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” 
(Isa. viii. 20.) The Bible is the unerring standard by 
which all Christian experience is to be tried. It would 
not be safe for even the best men to be left to the 


144 THE THREEFOLD ASSURANCE. 


interpretation of their own experience. The illusions: 


into which they may be swept in moments of excitement 
may appear to be truth in its glorified form; but a 


single word from the Scriptures will break the bubble, — 


which is filled only with air. Again, a true Christian 
hope rests always upon a double testimony—that of our 
own spirit and that of the Holy Ghost. (Rom. viii. 16.) 
In the case of all superstition, the latter testimony is 
always wanting. Still further, a true hope and its 
travesty are easily discriminated by the effects which 
they produce. The former is always sanctifying in its 
effect, producing deeper views of sin and a firmer grasp 
upon the doctrines of grace. The latter throws a veil 
over the secret nature of sin in its complete departure 
from holiness and God. 

Discarding all these fears, it should be the Chris- 
tian’s aim to attain this highest assurance of hope; 
remembering that the degree of faith is always the 
measure of hope: There is no more fixed law in Chris- 
tian experience than that announced by our Lord, 
“According to your faith be it unto you.” (Matt. ix. 
29). The benefits which flow from this hope are, even 
in this hfe, inconceivably great and precious. It is 
much to the Christian to live in serene composure 
amidst all the distractions of this present life. It is still 
more to be lifted above the agitation of doubts and 
fears of our own Christian state. But most of all is the 
gracious security of our hold upon the inheritance 
reserved for us above. 


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